Scarlett Johansson Returns To Broadway With ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’

Scarlett Johansson is returning to Broadway in a revival of the Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and, while The Avengers star will probably not wear any of the leather we saw her don as the Black Widow, she will still display quite the attitude in her role as sex-starved Maggie.

This isn’t Johansson’s first experience on Broadway either, as she won a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Play with Arthur Miller’s A View From a Bridge in 2010, reports The Chicago Tribune.

The screen actress, who will star opposite Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter star Benjamin Walker, received rave reviews from critics for her first stage appearance. Ben Brantley, the often irascible theater critic for the New York Times, wrote:

“Ms. Johansson melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears.”

In contrast to her first Broadway appearance, Williams’ melodramatic play will allow Scarlett Johansson plenty of opportunity to sizzle and glamorize her character. The actress will play a desperately unhappy woman who flaunts her sexuality in the hopes of drawing her repressed homosexual husband Brick (Walker) back into bed with her, notes The New York Daily News.

Ciaran Hinds from Game of Thrones will play Brick’s plantation-owner father, Big Daddy, while Tony winner Debra Monk will play Big Mama. The Williams play has been done on Broadway five times with Barbara Bel Geddes, Elizabeth Ashley, Kathleen Turner, Ashley Judd, and Anika Noni Rose all playing the part of Maggie.

Elizabeth Taylor played Maggie in the film adaptation of the play. The Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof play starring Scarlett Johansson will begin preview shows on December 18 and then open on January 17 at the Richard Rogers Theatre.