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Big Mama grieves when she is told Big Daddy is dying in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The play is put on by the Montana Repertory Theatre, which has been performing popular plays for 40 years.

Sex, lies and betrayal come to the Templeton–Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium stage tonight, as Montana Repertory Theatre shows what it’s like to be a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Written by Tennessee Williams in 1955, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won a Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a popular movie in 1958.

The play opens on the 55th birthday of Big Daddy, a large plantation owner and head of a southern family. As the play progresses, Big Daddy’s family discovers he has cancer and is going to die.

His children hide the news of Big Daddy’s impending death from Big Mama until the third act.

“The moment when they tell me Big Daddy has cancer is very difficult. I have to find that place of despair, betrayal, fear and incredible sadness, where I basically tear up my insides,” said Jayne Muirhead, who plays Big Mama.

The play also deals with the possible homosexuality of their son Brick, his failing marriage with his wife Maggie and the battle between the children to get Big Daddy’s inheritance.

“The play is about how important it is to tell people what you think and to be fearless about the scary things you are afraid to say,” Muirhead said. “It’s about how to deal with death and how to deal with someone in your family doing something that you don’t necessarily approve of, or know of.”

This is the Montana Repertory Theatre’s 40th anniversary of bringing large-scale theatre to the surrounding western states, according to its Web site.

“(The) cat on a hot tin roof (is Maggie),” Muirhead said. “But the whole play is about how everybody is a cat on a hot tin roof; we are all in a place that is so uncomfortable for us that it is painful.”