The Journal

Issue date: 10/12/06 Section: LifeStyle

Media Credit: Claudia Burris Kelslan Scarbrough (Maxine), Maria Tholl (Hannah) and Matt Timme (Shannon) in "The Night of the Iguana."

Theater Review: "The Night of the Iguana" Two Stars

And those two stars are mostly for the techies.

The Conservatory's presentation of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana" is supposed to be a complex story of repressed emotions and intense desires. Unfortunately, the acting, if not the scenic design, leaves much to be desired.

Taking place at a small Mexican hotel on the country's Pacific coast, the play revolves around the defrocked minister Rev. Shannon, a mentally unstable pedophile; the busty and vivacious Maxine, recently-widowed owner of the hotel; and Hannah, the broke Nantucket artist traveling with her aged poet grandfather Nonno.

The piece gets its name from an iguana captured by Maxine's workers, played by Bryce Johnson and Cesar Garcia (a nice touch having an actual Hispanic play a Mexican, by the way). The never-seen prop spends much of the play hidden underneath a gorgeous set of tropical plants and wooden shacks.

While there was some notable work done by the actors, most of it was simply not worth seeing. I hope anyone that was paid to coach Maria Tholl (Hannah) and Matt Timme (Shannon) was paid only pennies. Timme constantly lost the Southern accent he was trying to affect and Tholl simply lost the audience when she spoke in an English accent. Though the English accent was wonderfully done, Nantucket is in New England, not the old.

There also was a certain lack of chemistry between the developing love triangle of Tholl, Timme and Kelslan Scarbrough (Maxine). Their characters' hopes and fears, worries and aspirations - through lines that were dryly delivered - failed to evince any emotion from me. Instead of sympathizing with them or in anyway feeling for them, I found myself bored and wondering what the mysterious iguana looked like under all those leaves.

However, congratulations are in order for Israel Gutierrez (Nonno), who effectively and affectionately brought to life the role of a worldly man trying to finish one last poem before he died. Most of the time comic, other times incredibly sad and touching, Gutierrez was able to force the emotion out of the audience that befits a Tennessee Williams play. Perhaps he should have been given one of the lead roles.

Continued...

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