Nights of ‘the Iguana’
It’s a homecoming of sorts for director Michael Wilson as he presents playwright Tennessee Williams at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) this month, guiding an all-star cast through what was the writer’s last great critical and commercial success. First performed in 1961, “The Night of the Iguana,” explores familiar Williams territory: sex, desire, dysfunction, and despair. The play follows defrocked-preacher-turned-tour-guide T. Lawrence Shannon on a trek through Mexico with travelers from a Baptist women’s college. At a remote hotel run by Shannon’s friend Maxine Faulk, he encounters hotel guest Hannah Jelkes, who helps him confront his longtime demons. “It’s not a flawless play, but it’s a great play in what it achieves in its storytelling and its exploration of big themes,” said Wilson, whose first job after college was as the A.R.T.’s house manager in 1987. There’s “also that undeniably, incredibly intoxicating power Williams has to transport an audience through setting, mise...