The Night of the Iguana

I sat, heaving for air, in the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, shortly after the end of intermission for a showing of The Night of The Iguana (written by Tennessee Williams and published in 1961). Fellow audience members around me sat noiselessly, their excitement palpable, everyone was enraptured and paid no mind that I was clearly choking: most sat forward, oblivious to me, elbows perched upon knees; others sat back with astute expressions upon their faces and their gazes pensive. Not a single person was on their phone… I don’t think anything could have broken the concentration of that audience or diverted any eyes for even a second from that stage unless those eyes had to blink. I had awkwardly swallowed the drink of water I had just purchased during the intermission, it had gone down the wrong part of my throat, and as a result I was loudly and clearly struggling for air. The audience was so riveted by the second half of the show coming underway that my coughing, gagging, and sputtering only garnered a dismissive and hostile “hush” whilst I turned redder than a tomato. Apparently, to this audience, it was obnoxious to choke during such a good stage production; I guess that’s one way to show how warmly they received the show.

An hour and a half earlier, when I had arrived, the theater had been noisily bustling as members of the audience made their way to their seats. Most of the audience, I observed, consisted of people who were both middle aged and well dressed. They all looked like they frequented theatrical productions and I’d be very surprised if they weren’t all college-educated. The room had been loud with conversation, then, but once the show began it became quiet enough in that room to easily hear a pin drop. It was a small theater, the seating area was about the same size of a standard university classroom, and the stage was no more than 25 yards away from the farthest spectator. The set design didn’t change throughout the play: there was a couple of round dining tables, a hammock (which had a guitar on it at first, for the opening scene, and then came and went throughout), and there were three small rooms behind backlit, curtained doors that were meant to be hotel rooms. Drapes were everywhere, there was a staircase leading down to where the beach purportedly was (it just went into the abyss of whatever was below the stage and out of sight), and a path leading out behind the page that led to where the road purportedly was. Those who sat in the front row could see the play a little better than everyone else albeit they were probably too close: likely near enough to feel the spray of spit amid some dialogue scenes. The actors seemed to annunciate their scripted dialogue effortlessly, without microphones; they used voices that seemed naturally spoken but were easily audible from where I sat. The acting was faultless: it felt like I was watching it at a movie theater but the actors were right in front of me rather than on a screen. I sat close to the back but, since the theater was so small, I was still close enough to the stage to become absolutely star-struck by the presence of the two-time Tony winner himself: James Earl Jones. As he performed the role of Grandpa Nonno, confined to a wheelchair throughout the play as the “oldest performing poet”, his hair was styled just like an elderly Frederick Douglass’s and his voice was as rich and creamy as it was when he played the voices of Mufasa in Disney’s classic The Lion King and Darth Vader in the timeless Star Wars movies.

In the movie adaption of the play, released in 1964, a white actor plays Grandpa Nonno (Cyril Delevanti) and a white actress plays his granddaughter Hannah (Deborah Kerr). However, in this play, James Earl Jones plays Grandpa Nonno as an African-American man. Interestingly enough: Hannah, played by Amanda Plummer, remained white. It made me consider if there was a correlation between his hair being dressed up like the African American, abolitionist poet Frederick Douglass’s for a role as a poet that was meant to be Caucasian? Sure, maybe they casted Jones originally because of his rich, buttery voice but I believe it is very likely that the costume design team saw an opportunity to make something out of the change in ethnicity of Grandpa Nonno.

Overall The Night Of The Iguana was an absolute spectacle that I thoroughly enjoyed and anyone who looked at that audience would say that they clearly did too as the ending of the play induced quite a standing ovation. I highly recommend you go see it, at the A.R.T theater, with this cast.