Theater review by Raven Snook
Tennessee Williams's rarely revived The Night of the Iguana is a long, dazed journey into night. Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Tim Daly), a defrocked priest turned tour guide with a taste for liquor and underage liaisons, is at the end of his rope when he arrives at a dead friend's seaside hotel in 1940 Mexico. His pal’s fiery widow, Maxine (Daphne Rubin-Vega), welcomes him with open legs; she's prone to straddling him on the hammock. Shannon initially tries to salvage his job—his Baptist ladies' tour group, led by Lea DeLaria's barking doyenne, has many reasons to dislike him—but ends up debating spirituality, sex, sanity and suicide with fellow traveler Hannah (Jean Lichty), an impoverished New England sketch artist wandering the world with her nonagenarian grandfather (Austin Pendleton).
Shannon is a hard guy to tolerate, let alone love, and Daly's erratic performance does the play no favors. He improves in the latter half as his character unravels and spars with Hannah, a beatific spinster who turns out to be his celibate soul mate; their late-night heart-to-heart in the third act includes some of Williams's most achingly beautiful and empathetic writing. If only Lichty—who runs La Femme Theatre Productions, which is behind this mounting—were up to the job. With hair that obscures her face and an unmodulated delivery that obscures her words, she doesn't seem capable of captivating anyone, and director Emily Mann's lugubrious pacing only makes the task harder.
Still, there's power and poignancy in watching these lost creatures connect, and they're supported by a capable ensemble and evocative design—particularly Beowulf Boritt's rundown tropical porch and Jeff Croiter's lighting, which reflects Shannon's stormy journey of the psyche. The Night of the Iguana hasn't received a major New York production in more than a quarter century, and is quite different from the 1964 movie. Laden with poetry and symbolism, it's a lot like its central character: challenging, shunned, yet worthy of a redemption that this production can't quite deliver.
The Night of the Iguana. Pershing Square Signature Center (Off Broadway). By Tennessee Williams. Directed by Emily Mann. With Tim Daly, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Jean Lichty, Lea DeLaria, Austin Pendleton. Running time: 2hrs 50mins. One intermission.
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The Night of the Iguana | Photograph: Courtesy Joan Marcus