Scarlett Johansson receives mixed reviews on her Broadway performance

Three years after Scarlett Johansson’s theater debut in Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge, she returns to the stage, playing Maggie (aka. Maggie the cat) in Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, which opened in New York on Thursday night. She received mixed reviews for her performance.

Ben Brantley from The New York Times said that “Ms. Johansson confirms her promise as a stage actress of imposing presence and adventurous intelligence. Quibble all you want about the particulars of her performance. She obviously has a strong sense of what she wants to do here and the convictions to follow it through. Her Maggie is, as she must be, an undeniable life force and -- as far as this production, directed by Rob Ashford, is concerned -- a lifeline.”

Thom Geier of Entertainment Weekly said, "Scarlett Johansson brings a fierce fighting spirit to Maggie the Cat in director Rob Ashford's languorous Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'...But for a movie star with major sex-appeal, she falls surprisingly short in seductiveness. Her Cat flashes her claws, but doesn't purr."

Johansson apparently didn’t let these reviews influence her. She wants to continue her theatre career in London after her role as Maggie, reported Hollywood.com. She said, “I would love to do theatre in the West End . . .I love London. . .I’d like that to be next.”

Cat on A Hot Tin Roof is playing at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in Manhattan through March 30.