This is the first play I’ve seen in London. That’s “play”, not “musical”. It’s the first play I’ve seen in a long while. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me until after I arrived that London’s “fabulous West End” was fabulous because of the theatres. It wasn’t until I was riding up the escalator in a tube station and saw an ad for Ewan McGregor appearing now in Guys and Dolls. Unfortunately, I also discovered that most of the ads in London tube station escalator shafts are months out of date. So, no Ewan for me.
However, it got me to wondering about whomever else might be playing here that I’d heard of and would want to see live. At the time, I had my choice between Richard E. Grant, Bob Hoskins and Kristin Scott Thomas. Being a homesick American, I went with the only American in the only American play. Woody Harrelson in Tennessee Williams’ Night of the Iguana.
Oh, it was a decent show. Woody played the drunk defrocked priest turned tour-guide for a truckload of American women in Mexico. Richard Burton played it in the move. It’s a fair bet that Burton actually was drunk during the filming of the film. I kind of wished that Woody was smoking lots of pot for his performance. As it was, it was a little stilted. It was one of those plays where everyone seemed too conscious of the blocking and everyone was anticipating their next line. When the rain effect is the most exciting part of the play, (and this is supposed to be a Tennessee Williams play, right?) you know you’re being cheated.
See, in Tennessee Williams plays it’s always 110 degrees in the shade, sweat glistening on everyone. And the nature of humans dictates that a lot of hammocks will be snoozed in and a lot of iced drinks consumed. But Wiliams’ genius is that in the midst of these lazy summer days and nights, he interjects loose women and racism and hunky shirtless men with names like Rance, Lance, Vance, Chance, etc. And lots of sweaty sex.
Maybe it’s a fault of the play. Williams was going off his game, it’s true. But then it becomes the job of the director and the actors to not lie in the hammock sipping lemonade through the whole play. Everyone on stage has an obligation to, well, make it interesting. Unfortunately, no one here did, and the effect was more like a staged reading than an actual play.
I guess this is a bad review. It really wasn’t that bad. Jenny Seagrove was quite good, though sometimes it was hard to tell whether her halted delivery was part of the character, part of her normal speech, or just her struggling to remember the next line. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and go with the former. No, the play wasn’t bad at all, but when you’re going for Tennessee Williams steaminess, it’s disappointing when the result is basically lukewarm.
