For a play that declares its central theme is "lying and liars", Cat on a Hot Tin Roof offers a searingly honest portrait of families and relationships.

Whether it is Maggie the Cat's desperate attempts to make her husband "satisfy her desire", or Big Daddy's brutal admission that he hasn't been able to stand his wife for 40 years, "even when I laid her", this is a play that tears up taboos about discussing sex, and leaves the marital bedroom door wide open for the audience to gaze in - if they dare.

Many people will know the famous film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, but the sanitised Hollywood version doesn't get anywhere near the frankness of Tennessee Williams' original script, which still retains the power to shock audiences and make them gasp - both at the audacity of the dialogue, and the burning truth of what is said.

Melbourne Theatre Company's accomplished production is a mostly traditional interpretation, retaining the setting and era of a Mississippi Delta plantation in the 1950s. Stephen Curtis' design offers a stylised rather than authentic South. The vast, open set is dominated by hues of red and orange, with a dramatically raked stage thrust into the auditorium, evoking the expectation that Big Daddy and his family are all about to slide off into oblivion.

The language is modernised from Williams' published script, however, as euphemisms like "rutten" and "frig" are updated to more familiar profanities. This gives Big Daddy's language in particular more palpable aggression - though it hardly seems necessary.

Director Gale Edwards sticks quite closely to Williams' exacting stage directions, ensuring both clarity and fidelity of characterisation. The rhythm is steady and purposeful, though occasionally there might be more space for the actors to draw out a pause.

In many ways the production belongs to Essie Davis, who plays Maggie with a fine balance of sardonic and sympathetic appeal, with an emphasis on the latter. From the moment Maggie strips down to a satin negligee in the first minute of the play, Davis demonstrates a sense of ownership and control of the stage, as well as consummate style.

As her troubled husband Brick, Martin Henderson initially seems too withdrawn, leaving Davis little to work off. But Henderson comes into his own in his father-son interview with Big Daddy, played with obvious relish by Chris Haywood. There is a lot to like about Haywood's blustering performance, despite his amalgam of accents, which lurch from the Mississippi Delta to the Darling Downs.