THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA.

London

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA
by Tennessee Williams

Lyric Theatre
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu & Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr 45min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 890 1107 (booking fee)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 December

A brilliantly-portrayed revival.
This is the second bright Iguana night London theatre’s provided, following a superb 1992 Lyttelton Theatre production. Anthony Page’s Lyric revival sets Tennessee Williams’ moody meeting of lonely souls within a zestful onward urge that’s itchy, edgy and ready to explode like the storm that rages over the Mexican coastal hill where, in 1940, Clare Higgins’ gutsy Maxine reigns in recent widowhood.

Her old friend Shannon erupts into this scene, ex-preacher and soon to be ex tour-guide after he strands his coachful of Baptist women teachers so as to stay a few days at Maxine’s out-of-season hotel hideaway. Staving off his taste for alcohol and young women, Shannon finds himself fighting both attentive young Charlotte and her suspicious teacher, played by Nichola McAuliffe with a straight-backed, set-faced vengefulness that’s a shell against her own inner emptiness.

Between her, and Higgins ordering the Mexican servants around at the super-energy level needed to set them working, women seem best adapted to this world. Jenny Seagrove’s Hannah, travelling with her 96-year old father, earning food and board by her painting and his poetry, is a quieter survivor, sustained by belief in her father. Seagrove’s delicately resilient performance makes her eventual talk with Shannon the play’s emotional keynote.

For Woody Harrelson’s Shannon is perpetually fired in his search to express frustrations, combined with a desire for rest that leaves him fidgeting even in the hammock in which he’s eventually restrained. Like the Iguana the Mexicans catch, he struggles for freedom; having untied himself, he lets slip the lizard at Hannah’s request.

In this world only innocence or inanity is happy: the youthfully naive Charlotte, the cheery German tourists who adore their Fuhrer, or the Mexicans standing around till provoked into work; even the old poet, given an energy-filled drive by John Franklyn-Robbins. In the lush growth of Anthony Ward’s set mañana might be on the menu, but for the mid-generation figures from America life’s a fitful skid over the pit of loneliness, caught so many ways by Williams’ characters and given strong life by Page’s fine depiction of near-despair through energy rather than languor.

Pancho: Federico Zanni
Maxine Faulk: Clare Higgins
Pedro: Simon Kassianides
Shannon: Woody Harrelson
Herr Fahrenkopf/Jake Latta: Peter Banks
Frau Fahrenkopf: Nancy Baldwin
Hank: Sean Power
Hannah Jelkes: Jenny Seagrove
Jonathan Coffin: John Franklyn-Robbins
Charlotte Goodall: Jenna Harrison
Judith Fellowes: Nichola McAuliffe

Director: Anthony Page
Designer: Anthony Ward
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Sound: Colin Pink
Composer: Dominic Muldowney
Assistant director: Bronwen Carr

2005-12-08 23:43:55