After Tennessee Williams had finished his first version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and showed it to Elia Kazan, his long-time collaborator and the man who was to direct the play, Kazan suggested that he change the final act of the play in three ways. The changes Kazan suggested were first that Big Daddy was too pivotal a character in the play to be absent during the final scene. Secondly, that Brick should be loosened of his 'moral paralysis', and thirdly that there should be a more sympathetic treatment of Maggie. Williams agreed with only the last of these suggestions made by Kazan but was fearful of losing him as director of the play and therefore made the changes for a 'Broadway version'. However, when the play came to be published, Williams included both endings so that the 'reader can, if he wished, make up his own mind about it'. In this essay I will be comparing, contrasting and evaluating the two different endings of the play, analyzing how Williams incorporated Kazan's suggestions into the play, and discussing what these changes had on the Broadway version of the play as a whole and if these changes worked for the good or bad of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
             Kazan said that Williams wanted commercial success. This may lead us to understand another reason, apart from the fear of losing Kazan's talent as a director, as to why Williams made the changes. Williams stated that he saw the success of the public reaction as justification for the changes made. Yet this was precisely why Kazan suggested the changes so that it would be a Broadway hit. Williams had an uneasy relationship with Broadway and was quite skeptical of it. Therefore by deciding to include both endings when the play was published, Williams made a clear statement that he saw the 'primacy of the dramatic text'. In all likelihood, the original third act that Williams wrote would not have been such a great hit, indeed Williams agreed that a play that was a failure wo...