Rose Marine Theater's 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' works well

FORT WORTH -- Tennessee Williams travels well.

The Artes de la Rosa production of his Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which officially opens tonight at the Rose Marine Theater, moves the pathos and passion of the family drama from farmlands south of Memphis to a sugarcane plantation outside of Miami.

Thursday night's preview performance proved that Williams' brilliant dialogue works its magic at any longitude or latitude. The atmosphere is still Southern and oppressive, but in this version, there is also a little Spanish tossed in (mostly with repeated or obvious lines), and there is a slight undercurrent of distinctly Latin passion.

Joey Folsom, as Brick, and Rob Bosquez, as Big Daddy, are the standout members of the cast. Their intense confrontation in act two crackles with tension and anger.

Stephanie Cleghorn Bluth, as Maggie, makes a fetching feline. She purrs, claws and slinks around the stage and pushes the buttons of every member of the family. But although Bluth realizes the physical and sensual aspects of her role, she needs to be more natural in her delivery.

Or, at least that's what can be said of the first two-thirds of the show. Two hours and twenty minutes after the scheduled curtain time, the third act was just beginning when deadlines forced me to leave.

So this is a long, verbose drama and tough material for an amateur cast.

But thanks to a strong effort by director Adam Adolfo, it seldom lags.

And I hope it tells you enough that I would have very much liked to have seen how colorfully the fireworks in that final act explode.