Hubbard Hall’s Night Of The Iguana Not Their Best Work

a review by Alex Brooks
The plucky Theatre Company at Hubbard Hall has surfaced with another ambitious project, this one a new production of Tennessee Williams’ Night of the Iguana. This was Williams’ last successful play before he descended into the depression, abuse of drugs and alcohol and fears of his own mental instability which were to characterize the last two decades of his life. It’s a dark play, about a group of eccentric characters who are running out of options or, in the metaphor of the play, are at the end of their rope, like the iguana who is tied up under the porch. They come together in a seedy Mexican seaside hotel, and for a while we entertain the possibility that they might be able to save each other.
Doug Ryan stars as a dissolute former minister, about to lose his job as a tour bus leader, who runs to his old friend Maxine’s seaside hotel to try and pick up the pieces. He becomes involved in an odd sexual triangle, flirting with both Maxine, who has just lost her husband, and Hannah, a Nantucket spinster staying in the hotel, who is about to lose her grandfather, with whom she has been traveling the world for a number of years. The play depends on the energy from these sexual tensions to drive it along, and in this production they are rather flat. Ryan seems miscast in this role. He has been a brilliant comic actor in other Hubbard Hall productions and has carried off a number of dramatic roles with great panache, but in this one he struggles and never quite draws us in.
The original play, set in 1940, used the bombing of London as a major framing device for the play, with Germans staying in the hotel reminding us of the Nazi threat. That theme has mostly disappeared in this production, represented only by a rather harmless German couple who seem to be having a good time.
The play is not devoid of hopeful notes. The iguana under the porch does get freed, and Hannah’s grandfather Nonno does complete his last poem before lapsing into dementia, but the leading characters turn out to be too flawed to save each other, and the picture is rather bleak by the end. This is certainly in accord with Williams’ mood when he wrote the play, but some of the countervailing sparks that he put into the play are missing in this production, leaving it a bit listless.
Remaining performances are March 9.10, 16, 17, 23 and 24 at 8 pm and March 11, 18 and 25 at 2 pm. Sunday matinees will be followed by audience “talk-backs” with the actors and the director. Tickets are $20 for Hubbard Hall members, $24 for non-members and $15 for students. Tickets are available at www.hubbardhall.org or call 518-677-2495.