The Night of the Iguana

Like many people, my first introduction to The Night of the Iguana was John Huston’s 1964 star-studded film. It was the “Dialing for Dollars” movie on Channel 8 one day when I was home from school and the combination of Sue Lyon, Grayson Hall, Ava Gardner and Richard Burton insures it remains a favorite film. But Huston’s film isn’t particularly faithful to the play, so eight years ago, when I was first given the opportunity to direct Iguana, I was surprised by how rich and brilliant this last great Williams’ masterpiece really is.

In many ways, Iguana is familiar Williams’ territory – artistic souls tormented by their demons and under attack by the brutal people who have never, not even once, been kind to a stranger. And, like all of Williams’ work, his autobiography collides on every page with the fictional world he has created. His sister Rose, his Episcopalian priest grandfather, his wounded self, all reverberate in the story of Rev. Shannon, Hannah Jelkes and Maxine Faulk as clearly as they do in A Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly Last Summer and The Glass Menagerie.

But the play is also provocatively different than what came before it and what would follow, for the play escapes Williams’ southern universe and finds itself perched in a Mexican rainforest overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And although sex is, as usual, front and center, God also plays a starring role. No other major Williams play is so intimately concerned with faith, with God, with God’s silence, God’s wrath and God’s love.

Iguana is a play about people who find themselves at the end of their rope and have to figure out some way to go on. It is a play about despair and what comes after. It is perhaps the hallmark of Williams’ genius that a play that shows us a world teetering on the brink of nothingness is also so funny, so alive and so thrilling.

Iguana is a scary play for the artists who have to delve into its stormy, tempestuous world. It makes us look into hidden corners of ourselves, things we would like to forget, things of which we are ashamed or frightened or from which we are running away. But the fear of confronting a play as powerful and as demanding is also thrilling. It isn’t often the American theatre provides such scope in story, character and theme.

This past July, I traveled to Mexico’s Pacific coast. In the heat and unbearable humidity of a Friday afternoon, I walked, drenched with sweat, into the mountain rainforests above the village of Mismaloya. These jungles were a riot of colors, sounds and movement. Iguanas basked in the sun in the trees overhead. And then suddenly, a storm broke, violent and fierce. Just as suddenly, the rain ended and it seemed as if some kind of fragile peace had come to this wild place. Such is the journey of Williams’ incredible play. It is a journey I am thrilled to be able to take for a second time and a journey I am thrilled to be able to share with you.

Preston Lane