[b] During the course of their conversation, she offers to make a generous donation to support the doctor's psychiatric research if he will perform a lobotomy on Catharine, her niece, who has been confined to St. Mary, a private mental institution, at her expense since returning to America.

[5]:  23  But the doctor injects Catharine with a truth serum and she proceeds to give a scandalous account of Sebastian's moral dissolution and the events leading up to his death, how he used her to procure young men for his sexual exploitation,[5]:  44  and how he was set upon, mutilated, and partially devoured by a mob of starving children in the street.

[6]:  229  Sebastian's "jungle-garden," with its "violent" colours and noises of "beasts, serpents, and birds ... of savage nature" introduces the images of predation that punctuate much of the play's dialogue.

[c] These have been interpreted variously as implying the violence latent in Sebastian himself;[7] depicting modernity's vain attempts to "contain" its atavistic impulses;[8] and standing for a bleak "Darwinian" vision of the world, equating "the primeval past and the ostensibly civilised present.

"[d] The Venus flytrap mentioned in the play's opening speech can be read as portraying Sebastian as the "pampered" son,[10]:  337  or "hungry for flesh";[e] as portraying the "seductive deadliness" concealed beneath Mrs. Venable's "civilized veneer,"[9]:  112  while she "clings desperately to life" in her "hothouse" home;[12] as a joint "metaphor for Violet and Sebastian, who consume and destroy the people around them";[13] as symbolising nature's cruelty, like the "flesh-eating birds" of the Galapagos;[14] as symbolising "a primitive state of desire,"[15] and so on.

"[6]:  239–241 In spite of its difficulties, however, the play's recurrent images of predation and cannibalism[f] point to Catharine's cynical pronouncement as key to understanding the playwright's intentions: "we all use each other," she says in Scene 4, "and that's what we think of as love.

[17] The film version was released by Columbia Pictures, in 1959, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift; it was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Williams.

[21] The play debuted in the West End in 1999 at the Comedy Theatre, London, starring Sheila Gish as Mrs. Venable, Rachel Weisz as Catharine, Gerard Butler as Dr. Cukrowicz and directed by Sean Mathias.

Director Kip Williams blended live camera work with traditional stage craft in a production starring Eryn Jean Norvill as Catherine and Robyn Nevin as Venable.

Stéphane Braunschweig directed Luce Mouchel as Mrs. Venable, Marie Rémond as Catherine, Jean-Baptiste Anoumon as Dr. Cukrowicz, Océane Cairaty as Miss Foxhill, Virginie Colemyn as Mrs. Holly, Glenn Marausse as George, and Boutaïna El Fekkak as Sœur Félicité.