"Even as his characters stumble tragically in search of meaning, their convictions carry the sharp-tongued certainty of soap opera idols. But a new revival from La Femme Theater at the Signature Center mires itself too deeply in its characters’ confusions to let the edges of his language shine."
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"3/5 Stars. "Shannon is a hard guy to tolerate, let alone love, and Daly's erratic performance does the play no favors...Emily Mann's lugubrious pacing only makes the task harder...Laden with poetry and symbolism, the play is a lot like its central character: challenging, shunned, yet worthy of a redemption that this production can't quite deliver."
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"The play as written unfolds almost in real time; we watch the precarious, almost combustible relationships between these people slowly mutate over one night that, in this 3-hour play, stretches on. And on."
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“ ‘The Night of the Iguana’, like the reptile in its name, needs a little heat to get moving...for the play to work I think you have to be willing to turn the temperature up instead—stare down the maximalism and embrace it...In 'Iguana,' there’s plenty of introspection - but not enough momentum to grip you. The characters keep bracing for a storm, yet Mann’s production stays placid.”
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“Wordy and slow to develop, ‘The Night of the Iguana’ works best when it draws the audience into its intrigue by allowing us to glimpse the fantastic hiding among the mundane. Unfortunately, that never really happens in this rudderless production. By the third hour, it was clear the squirmy audience sympathized most with the lizard.”
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“The Night of the Iguana is a tricky piece -- it is long, talky, and filled with fractious encounters yet it climaxes in an extraordinary baring of souls that requires the most sensitive handling -- and it cries out for a kind of bravura acting that is missing from Emily Mann's production. Everyone involved seems to know which notes to hit, but they do so either unconvincingly or in a muted fashion. Such half-measures are no good; the often-tentative quality of the acting drains the play of tension.”
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“The staging remains so static, however, that it's difficult to get a sense of the boiling, collective desperation that keeps characters metaphorically tethered to the ends of their ropes...One wonders if the rousing applause at the final curtain call–mostly for Daly, the only actor taking a solo bow in this ‘Femme’ production–is sublimated joy for the creature finally set free. Audiences also scurried for the exit.”
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"Not to get too personal about it, or maybe to get far too personal about it: The La Femme Theatre revival of Tennessee Williams’s 'The Night of the Iguana' offered me a double whammy."
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