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The Night of the Iguana

 ((Criterion Center Stage Right, New York; 499 seats; $ 55 top))

By JEREMY GERARD

A Roundabout Theater Company presentation of a play in two acts by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Robert Falls.
 
Cast: Marsha Mason (Maxine Faulk), Alfredo MacDonald (Pancho), Diego Lopez (Pedro), William Petersen (Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon), Sinje Ollen (Hilda), Lawrence Woshner (Wolfgang), Dan Frick (Herr Fahrenkopf), Betsy Freytag (Frau Fahrenkopf), Scott Jaeck (Hank), Mary Beth Fisher (Judith Fellowes), Cherry Jones (Hannah Jelkes), Paula Cale (Charlotte Goodall), Lawrence McCauley (Nonno) , Dennis Predovic (Jake Latta).
 

Having staged "The Rose Tattoo" at Circle in the Square last season, director Robert Falls returns with "The Night of the Iguana" at the Roundabout; the two are major-league productions of somewhat less-than-major-league Tennessee Williams. Falls gets mixed results from his cast, most of whom appeared in this production's premiere two years ago at his home base, Chicago's Goodman Theater. Nevertheless, the production makes a persuasive case for the play.

Of the two works, the 1961 "Iguana" is inarguably the more rewarding as dramatic literature and comes closest in stature to Williams' earlier masterpieces. But like many of the later works, it also features a certain crude rawness that seems to exist for little more than shock value, from the family of Germans shouting "Seig heil!" as they celebrate the bombing of London (the year is 1940), to the image of humanity literally feeding off a mound of excrement. Still, grounding both play and production is the incandescent Cherry Jones as the penniless Nantucket sketch artist Hannah Jelkes, who comes upon a run-down hotel in a rain forest on the west coast of Mexico and the pair of hungry hearts abiding there. Jones exudes an unshakeable self-possession as a woman who knows exactly what she'sabout when she meets T. Lawrence Shannon (William Petersen), the "unfrocked," unstable reverend with a taste for teenage girls who's been reduced to leading tour-bus groups through these humid precincts, and the blowzy widow Maxine Faulk (Marsha Mason), who's gone ants-in-her-pants with designs on him.

(Hannah, Shannon and Maxine were played by Margaret Leighton, Patrick O'Neil and Bette Davis, respectively, in the Broadway premiere, and by Deborah Kerr, Richard Burton and Ava Gardner in John Huston's superb 1964 film.)

On Loy Arcenas' exceptionally atmospheric set (replete with an outdoor shower going full-strength at curtain-rise on the mostly naked Alfredo MacDonald, one of the two frisky locals Maxine keeps on hand for, er, odd jobs), Falls plays up the sultriness and the burlesque: Mason enters with shirt undone and shorts unzipped, and will make few sartorial concessions to the busload of rebellious Bible school ladies Shannon has brought her way.

When Shannon lounges on the prominent hammock, Maxine lounges right on top of him, with plenty of grinding in case there's any doubt about her intent, and if she's no Bette Davis, Mason still quite niftily banishes all memory of "Cinderella Liberty."

Then Hannah arrives with her grandfather, Nonno (Lawrence McCauley), the world's oldest practicing poet. They have been turned away from the area's better hotels and are desperate for lodgings they typically barter for, she doing quick sketches at dining room tables, he reciting his work.

Femme and floral atmospherics aside, any production of "Iguana" will turn on Hannah's and Shannon's second-act arias: Shannon furiously resists the salvation Hannah offers; she remains implacably generous in the face of that resistance.

In matters of class and circumstance, Hannah is an altogether different brand of spinster than Catherine Sloper, whom Jones played in last season's "The Heiress." But Jones imbues all of her characters with an exalted stillness of spirit, whatever turbulence surrounds her. And she has the rare gift of generosity that comes of total, unaffected confidence that manages to rivet our attention on her without seeming to take away from everything else unfolding onstage -- one definition, at least, of true star quality.

Petersen can't compete with one of Burton's greatest film performances, and, wisely, he doesn't try. His Shannon is besieged by lesser demons than those that wracked Burton. What the performance lacks in heft Petersen almost makes up for in manic, comic energy.

McCauley is wonderful as the ancient poet, and there are good supporting performances from Mary Beth Fisher as the leader of the church ladies' mutiny, Paula Cale as Shannon's latest conquest and Scott Jaeck as the bus driver.

That fine set is gorgeously lit by James F. Ingalls, and Susan Hilferty's costumes are right on the money, from Shannon's slightly tattered linen suit to Hannah's precious kimono. It's no small testament to Falls & Co. that the evening's three hours pass quickly and movingly.

Set, Loy Arcenas; costumes, Susan Hilferty; lighting, James F. Ingalls; sound, Richard Woodbury; hair, David H. Lawrence; production stage manager, Janet Beroza; casting, Pat McCorkle. Opened March 21, 1996. Reviewed March 19. Running time: 2 hours, 55 min.