A Fancy Cast and Staging with Poor play

review by Justin Chen

            The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams it’s a disappointing play. Opening in the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, it’s really unpleasant experience. The cast are really fancy with some fantastic actor, staging. However, the show is just awkward and confusing.

            The character in the play is unclear. First, the title of the show that mention Iguana, however, there are nothing talking about Iguana in the show except two workers catch an Iguana. If something named by Iguana, it should be mentioned more Iguana in the show instead of once. Second, some characters are really unnecessary in the play. For example, three Germans inside the play are just making things really awkward. They are sometime speaking in German that most of the people in the audience don’t even understand what they are talking about. Also, they are sometime can be distracting my thought of the play. When people starts understanding the scene in the play, the Germans just come out and distracting the thought of the audience. They were usually creating some weird action when the main character trying to put the story in to climax. The student character is another unnecessary character inside as well. It doesn’t really push the play going forward, however sometimes it creates some negative influences of the what audience thoughts.

           

The word is really hard to be understood. Sometimes the lines are just coming from nowhere. The Granddaughter of Nono stands as good example. Sometimes she said something that makes no sense. At the beginning of the play it seems really funny. However, as the story developing, her sense of humor starts to become a distraction. Sometimes when she trying to tell some importance things to the main character and at the end of the sentence, she just added something comes out from nowhere. That is a real distraction for audiences and it slows down the development of the story as well. Also, sometimes the Germans are really make no sense to me. They are just come out from somewhere, speaking German that makes the dialog between main characters that distracting the play as well. It is really unpleasant for those distractions.

            The shining point of this show is the staging. A scene where the storm is coming, there are thunder voice and its light. And then a massive amount of water just come down from the ceiling, it is real that makes the audience feel that I am actually in a storm right now. Also, the room of this motel is really real as well. The door and the decoration really makes this motel looks really old and dirty. The stage manager even used the orchestra place to creates different level of stage. When people go down there, which means they are going to the beach. It is really clear to tell the audience where the character is.

            It is really sad to see a such good cast and staging presenting a poor show. It is really important for the author of the show to reflect the success of the show and the failure of this show.