In this 1955 review, Bentley addresses claims that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is among the first dramas to deal with homosexuality. Despite some advances over his contemporaries, however, Williams—in Bentley's view—has not yet approached the subject in a direct or satisfactory manner.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roofwas heralded by some as the play in which homosexuality was at last to be presented without evasion. But the miracle has still not happened.

The cat of the title is the heroine, the roof her husband; he would like her to jump off, that is, find a lover. Driven by passions he neither understands nor controls, he takes to drink and envies the moon; the hot cat and the cool moon being the two chief symbols and points of reference in the play. The boy says he has taken to drink because "mendacity...