Theatre review: The Night of the Iguana

The latest Tennessee Williams revival features many characteristic elements from his most famous work, but also feels like a departure that hints at the more experimental phase he went into later in his career: Set in 1940 in a ramshackle, inaccessible Mexican hotel at the edge of the rainforest, The Night of the Iguana is a melodrama touching on a number of characters, but predominantly focusing on a trio of Americans: The Rev T. Lawrence Shannon (Clive Owen) is an alcoholic, not-technically-defrocked minister driven out of his church and the US for statutory rape; he makes a living as a tour guide, but his tendency to fall off the wagon every 18 months – and the ensuing meltdown – doesn’t endear him to the busloads of middle-aged women he shows around the area. He’s just had his latest lapse as the play begins, and instead of taking his tour group to the city hotel on their itinerary has brought them here, in the hopes that spending time with his friend the owner will help him.

Instead he finds that the owner’s recently deceased, and the newly-widowed Maxine (Anna Gunn) is trying to cope both with her grief and with managing a hotel whose finances are in an even worse state than she’d realised.

The third side of the triangle is Lia Williams’ Hannah, a Nantucket spinster who travels the world with her 97-year-old poet grandfather (Julian Glover,) making their way by charging tourists for his poetry recitals and her sketches and watercolours. With his health failing, they’ve found themselves penniless for the first time and Hannah is trying to bluff her way into a room for the night. They’re all meaty roles – Shannon’s usual modus operandi of sleeping with underage girls, hitting them and then refusing to take responsibility for his actions means that even as a flawed hero he’s a hard sell, but the fact that he’s as self-destructive as he is of everyone else makes him interesting to watch. Maxine is the very image of a liberated woman in control – she hired her young Mexican bellboys (Daniel Chaves and Manuel Pacific) partly so she could shag them on the side – and Gunn has fun with her cutting one-liners while also showing that underneath she’s struggling: Her instant dislike for Hannah doesn’t come just from knowing she’s unlikely to be able to pay her bill, but also because of the obvious spark between her and Shannon, whom Maxine is already eyeing up to replace her husband.

But it’s Hannah who feels like the classic Tennessee Williams heroine, except much more in control than most, and Lia Williams’ Katharine Hepburn-channelling performance is the highlight of an otherwise uneven – and much too long – evening (Delfont Mackintosh’s website lists the running time as 2 hours 55 while the information email I was sent the day before lied that it was 2 hours 30, both shy of the 3 hours 10 I clocked it as, the latter by a whole FORTY.
EARTH.
MINUTES.which is new levels of taking the piss.) James Macdonald’s production is atmospheric but definitely could have done with some cuts and speeding up here and there, while a playwright of Williams’ calibre really should know better than to end a 3-hour+ play with Hannah asking “oh god, is it finally over?” Plus, the final scene largely consists of Glover’s “Nonno” reciting the last, long poem he’s finally completed – a missed opportunity to just do a limerick, especially given the character’s from Nantucket.

The publicity calls this “Tennessee Williams’ last great play,” a claim that could probably be argued with on a couple of points; premiering in 1961, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that this dates from after the playwright discovered cocaine. Both Shannon and Hannah tell grubby sexual backstories that feel a little bit out of character for Williams, while there’s an utterly bizarre inclusion of a family of holidaying Nazis who wander back and forth from their rooms to the beach and back every so often; they sing celebratory songs when they hear of the damage the Blitz has done to London, bark at Maxine for more alcohol, and mock and bait anyone they see in a state of vulnerability. Basically a lot of effort is put into making it clear that they’re a bunch of dicks, which the word “Nazis” had already pretty much comprehensively covered.

Finty Williams has a barnstorming couple of scenes as Mrs Fellowes, one of the coach party who’s particularly determined to get Shannon fired for his behaviour, but if there’s a real show-stealer it’s between Rae Smith’s design, Neil Austin’s lighting and Max Pappenheim's sound, which bring the tropical location and the storm at the centre of the play to dramatic life. The Night of the Iguana doesn’t feel like top-tier Williams to me, at least not in this production, with a final act that’s overlong and doesn’t play out as strongly as the opening two. But, if you go in knowing just how long an evening you’re in for (seriously, this sort of thing is what 7pm start times were meant for) I think it’s worth it for strong performances which bring to life a work that might not entirely hold together, but has moments of hypnotic beauty and sadness.

The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams is booking until the 28th of September at the Noël Coward Theatre.

Running time: 3 hours 10 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Brinkhoff Moegenburg.