PLENTY OF SCRATCH IN GEFFEN'S 'CAT' JOHN GOODMAN, JENNIFER MUDGE RAISE THIS 'HOT TIN ROOF' HIGH.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

THE GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE has reopened its newly renovated Westwood home with the theatrical equivalent of a Mardi Gras blast. ``Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,'' Tennessee Williams' mossy, sweaty tale of a Southern family trying to claw its way back into the light even while its patriarch is in full-throttle decay, really is a banquet. Dated, over-the-top and - in the correct hands - irresistible. Theatrical catnip, even.

Director Gil Cates has cast and paced his production with a sure hand. This single evening of schemes and revelations - set on the occasion of Big Daddy Pollitt's 65th birthday - moves with an urgency even when its actors claim they just want to be calm.

The first two acts are strongly buttressed by a pair of performances by Jennifer Mudge as the sex-starved Maggie the Cat and John Goodman as the dying Big Daddy. Maggie's problem and Big Daddy's are essentially the same: Both want Brick Pollitt (Maggie's husband, Big Daddy's golden-boy younger son) to dispense with his alcoholic funk and reclaim his manhood. Trouble is, that's not what Brick wants.

Employing twin levels of ferocity, Mudge and Goodman play opposite a Brick (Jeremy Davidson) who - in the space of a few hours - consumes enough liquor to generously fill a sink. When he's not swilling it down, Davidson rubs it over his skin as if the ``click'' of serenity he's waiting to achieve will arrive faster if the whiskey can soak through his pores. Pushed too hard, Brick is still capable of fighting back. A freshly broken ankle prevents him from wielding his crutch with any kind of accuracy. But he doesn't need a weapon to take down Big Daddy.

Mudge and Davidson are younger than the roles are often cast, suggesting a married couple whose demons forced them to peak far too early and who don't yet know each other. Still, Maggie has no time to wait. She's 27 and desperate for a baby (meaning a potential heir to the Pollitt fortune) and for some kind of tenderness. Neither actor is capable of stillness, and the first-act battle - oft interrupted - in Maggie and Brick's room - finds Mudge, in a revealing pink slip, creeping and slinking over every square inch of John Arnone's set. If a reclining Brick so much as sticks out an arm, this Maggie will find a way to pony-step over it.

Mudge's Maggie clearly isn't so green that she doesn't know how to use her sensuality to calculated effect. The character's intense sense of need comes through when she lets her guard down. She's learning - on the job - how to lure her husband back.

The much-awaited entrance of Goodman's Big Daddy in Act 2 gives this ``Cat'' a different kind of wattage. Gray-haired and goateed, a perspiring and ever-feisty man of consumption, Goodman taps lustily into Big Daddy's disgusts and appetites. Big Daddy demands the truth - about Brick and about himself - but he won't like the answer. All the crass, life-affirming bluster of the previous 20 minutes disappears in a single instant when Brick spills the beans. It's all right there on Goodman's horrified face, and it's a sight to behold.

Providing a less-ramped-up counterpoint to the Williams misery are Brenda Fricker as a worried but less-clutching Big Mama and Kirsten Potter, phony and all business as Mae, the wife of less-preferred son Gooper. When we meet Gooper and Mae's brood of ``no-necked monsters'' (Zoe Photenhauer, Amanda Sue Walker, Aiden Lafraniere and Chaz Salazar), we find they are dressed mommy-and-me style in the same clothing pattern as their mother. And while Williams' script specifies five children with a sixth on the way, the Geffen production uses only four.

Arnone's set, ornate and climbing high with a flower-covered veranda, shows off the stage to beautiful effect. Acoustics were a bit of a problem opening night, when the heavy Southern accents of several of the characters (Paul Wagar is the production's dialect coach) were swallowed up during quick speeches. Mudge and Goodman didn't have this problem. Small wonder. The big cats of Williams' ``Hot Tin Roof'' tend to roar.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF - Three and one half stars

Where: Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 18.

Tickets: $35 to $69. [phone].

In a nutshell: A family decline in glorious display.

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Photo:

Brick (Jeremy Davidson) prefers drink to Maggie (Jennifer Mudge) in ``Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.''