The Night of the Iguana

by Tennessee Williams

  SHANNON: What about tomorrow?

  HANNAH [with difficulty]: I think it might be better, tomorrow, if we avoid showing any particular interest in each other, because Mrs. Faulk is a morbidly jealous woman.

  SHANNON: Is she?

  HANNAH: Yes, she seems to have misunderstood our . . . sympathetic interest in each other. So I think we’d better avoid any more long talks on the verandah. I mean till she’s thoroughly reassured it might be better if we just say good morning or good night to each other.

  SHANNON: We don’t even have to say that.

  HANNAH: I will, but you don’t have to answer.

  SHANNON [savagely]: How about wall-tappings between us by way of communication? You know, like convicts in separate cells communicate with each other by tapping on the walls of the cells? One tap: I’m here. Two taps: are you there? Three taps: yes, I am. Four taps: that’s good, we’re together. Christ! . . . Here, take this. [He snatches the gold cross from his pocket.] Take my gold cross and hock it, it’s 22-carat gold.

  HANNAH: What do you, what are you . . . ?

  SHANNON: There’s a fine amethyst in it, it’ll pay your travel expenses back to the States.

  HANNAH: Mr. Shannon, you’re making no sense at all now.

  SHANNON: Neither are you, Miss Jelkes, talking about tomorrow, and. . . .

  HANNAH: All I was saying was. . . .

  SHANNON: You won’t be here tomorrow! Had you forgotten you won’t be here tomorrow?

  HANNAH [with a slight, shocked laugh]: Yes, I had, I’d forgotten!

  SHANNON: The widow wants you out and out you’ll go, even if you sell your water colors like hotcakes to the pariah dogs in the plaza. [He stares at her, shaking his head hopelessly.]

  HANNAH: I suppose you’re right, Mr. Shannon. I must be too tired to think or I’ve contracted your fever. . . . It had actually slipped my mind for a moment that—

  NONNO [abruptly, from his cubicle]: Hannah!

  HANNAH [rushing to his door]: Yes, what is it, Nonno? [He doesn’t hear her and repeats her name louder.] Here I am, I’m here.

  NONNO: Don’t come in yet, but stay where I can call you.

  HANNAH: Yes, I’ll hear you, Nonno. [She turns toward Shannon, drawing a deep breath.]

  SHANNON: Listen, if you don’t take this gold cross that I never want on me again, I’m going to pitch it off the verandah at the spook in the rain forest. [He raises an arm to throw it, but she catches his arm to restrain him.]

  HANNAH: All right, Mr. Shannon, I’ll take it, I’ll hold it for you.

  SHANNON: Hock it, honey, you’ve got to.

  HANNAH: Well, if I do, I’ll mail the pawn ticket to you so you can redeem it, because you’ll want it again, when you’ve gotten over your fever. [She moves blindly down the verandah and starts to enter the wrong cubicle.]

  SHANNON: That isn’t your cell, you went past it. [His voice is gentle again.]

  HANNAH: I did, I’m sorry. I’ve never been this tired in all my life. [She turns to face him again. He stares into her face. She looks blindly out, past him.] Never! [There is a slight pause.] What did you say is making that constant, dry, scuffling sound beneath the verandah?

  SHANNON: I told you.

  HANNAH: I didn’t hear you.

  SHANNON: I’ll get my flashlight, I’ll show you. [He lurches rapidly into his cubicle and back out with a flashlight.] It’s an iguana. I’ll show you. . . . See? The iguana? At the end of its rope? Trying to go on past the end of its goddam rope? Like you! Like me! Like Grampa with his last poem!

  [In the pause which follows singing is heard from the beach.]

  HANNAH: What is a—what—iguana?

  SHANNON: It’s a kind of lizard—a big one, a giant one. The Mexican kids caught it and tied it up.

  HANNAH: Why did they tie it up?

  SHANNON: Because that’s what they do. They tie them up and fatten them up and then eat them up, when they’re ready for eating. They’re a delicacy. Taste like white meat of chicken. At least the Mexicans think so. And also the kids, the Mexican kids, have a lot of fun with them, poking out their eyes with sticks and burning their tails with matches. You know? Fun? Like that?

  HANNAH: Mr. Shannon, please go down and cut it loose!

  SHANNON: I can’t do that.

  HANNAH: Why can’t you?

  SHANNON: Mrs. Faulk wants to eat it. I’ve got to please Mrs. Faulk, I am at her mercy. I am at her disposal.

  HANNAH: I don’t understand. I mean I don’t understand how anyone could eat a big lizard.

  SHANNON: Don’t be so critical. If you got hungry enough you’d eat it too. You’d be surprised what people will eat if hungry. There’s a lot of hungry people still in the world. Many have died of starvation, but a lot are still living and hungry, believe you me, if you will take my word for it. Why, when I was conducting a party of—ladies?—yes, ladies . . . through a country that shall be nameless but in this world, we were passing by rubberneck bus along a tropical coast when we saw a great mound of . . . well, the smell was unpleasant. One of my ladies said, “Oh, Larry, what is that?” My name being Lawrence, the most familiar ladies sometimes call me Larry. I didn’t use the four letter word for what the great mound was. I didn’t think it was necessary to say it. Then she noticed, and I noticed too, a pair of very old natives of this nameless country, practically naked except for a few filthy rags, creeping and crawling about this mound of . . . and . . . occasionally stopping to pick something out of it, and pop it into their mouths. What? Bits of undigested . . . food particles, Miss Jelkes. [There is silence for a moment. She makes a gagging sound in her throat and rushes the length of the verandah to the wooden steps and disappears for a while. Shannon continues, to himself and the moon.] Now why did I tell her that? Because it’s true? That’s no reason to tell her, because it’s true. Yeah. Because it’s true was a good reason not to tell her. Except . . . I think I first faced it in that nameless country. The gradual, rapid, natural, unnatural—predestined, accidental—cracking up and going to pieces of young Mr. T. Lawrence Shannon, yes, still young Mr. T. Lawrence Shannon, by which rapid-slow process . . . his final tour of ladies through tropical countries. . . . Why did I say “tropical”? Hell! Yes! It’s always been tropical countries I took ladies through. Does that, does that—huh?—signify something, I wonder? Maybe. Fast decay is a thing of hot climates, steamy, hot, wet climates, and I run back to them like a. . . . Incomplete sentence. . . . Always seducing a lady or two, or three or four or five ladies in the party, but really ravaging her first by pointing out to her the—what?—horrors? Yes, horrors!—of the tropical country being conducted a tour through. My . . . brain’s going out now, like a failing—power. . . . So I stay here, I reckon, and live off la patrona for the rest of my life. Well, she’s old enough to predecease me. She could check out of here first, and I imagine that after a couple of years of having to satisfy her I might be prepared for the shock of her passing on. . . . Cruelty . . . pity. What is it? . . . Don’t know, all I know is. . . .

  HANNAH: [from below the verandah]: You’re talking to yourself.

  SHANNON: No. To you. I knew you could hear me out there, but not being able to see you I could say it easier, you know . . . ?

  NONNO:

  A chronicle no longer gold,

  A bargaining with mist and mould. . . .

  HANNAH [coming back onto the verandah]: I took a closer look at the iguana down there.

  SHANNON: You did? How did you like it? Charming? Attractive?

  HANNAH: No, it’s not an attractive creature. Nevertheless I think it should be cut loose.

  SHANNON: Iguanas have been known to bite their tails off when they’re tied up by their tails.

  HANNAH: This one is tied by its throat. It can’t bite its own head off to escape from the end of the rope, Mr. Shannon. Can you look at me and tell me truthfully that you don’t know it’s able to feel pain and panic?

  SHANNON: You mean it’s one of God’s creatures?

  HAN
NAH: If you want to put it that way, yes, it is. Mr. Shannon, will you please cut it loose, set it free? Because if you don’t, I will.

  SHANNON: Can you look at me and tell me truthfully that this reptilian creature, tied up down there, doesn’t mostly disturb you because of its parallel situation to your Grampa’s dying-out effort to finish one last poem, Miss Jelkes?

  HANNAH: Yes, I. . . .

  SHANNON: Never mind completing that sentence. We’ll play God tonight like kids play house with old broken crates and boxes. All right? Now Shannon is going to go down there with his machete and cut the damn lizard loose so it can run back to its bushes because God won’t do it and we are going to play God here.

  HANNAH: I knew you’d do that. And I thank you.

  [Shannon goes down the two steps from the verandah with the machete. He crouches beside the cactus that hides the iguana and cuts the rope with a quick, hard stroke of the machete. He turns to look after its flight, as the low, excited mumble in cubicle 3 grows louder. Then Nonno’s voice turns to a sudden shout.]

  NONNO: Hannah! Hannah! [She rushes to him, as he wheels himself out of his cubicle onto the verandah.]

  HANNAH: Grandfather! What is it?

  NONNO: I! believe! it! is! finished! Quick, before I forget it—pencil, paper! Quick! please! Ready?

  HANNAH: Yes. All ready, Grandfather.

  NONNO [in a loud, exalted voice]:

  How calmly does the orange branch

  Observe the sky begin to blanch

  Without a cry, without a prayer,

  With no betrayal of despair.

  Sometime while night obscures the tree

  The zenith of its life will be

  Gone past forever, and from thence

  A second history will commence.

  A chronicle no longer gold,

  A bargaining with mist and mould,

  And finally the broken stem

  The plummeting to earth; and then

  An intercourse not well designed

  For beings of a golden kind

  Whose native green must arch above

  The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.

  And still the ripe fruit and the branch

  Observe the sky begin to blanch

  Without a cry, without a prayer,

  With no betrayal of despair.

  O Courage, could you not as well

  Select a second place to dwell,

  Not only in that golden tree

  But in the frightened heart of me?

  Have you got it?

  HANNAH: Yes!

  NONNO: All of it?

  HANNAH: Every word of it.

  NONNO: It is finished?

  HANNAH: Yes.

  NONNO: Oh! God! Finally finished?

  HANNAH: Yes, finally finished. [She is crying. The singing voices flow up from the beach.]

  NONNO: After waiting so long!

  HANNAH: Yes, we waited so long.

  NONNO: And it’s good! It is good?

  HANNAH: It’s—it’s. . . .

  NONNO: What?

  HANNAH: Beautiful, Grandfather! [She springs up, a fist to her mouth.] Oh, Grandfather, I am so happy for you. Thank you for writing such a lovely poem! It was worth the long wait. Can you sleep now, Grandfather?

  NONNO: You’ll have it typewritten tomorrow?

  HANNAH: Yes. I’ll have it typed up and send it off to Harper’s.

  NONNO: Hah? I didn’t hear that, Hannah.

  HANNAH [shouting]: I’ll have it typed up tomorrow, and mail it to Harper’s tomorrow! They’ve been waiting for it a long time, too! You know!

  NONNO: Yes, I’d like to pray now.

  HANNAH: Good night. Sleep now, Grandfather. You’ve finished your loveliest poem.

  NONNO [faintly, drifting off]: Yes, thanks and praise . . .

  [Maxine comes around the front of the verandah, followed by Pedro playing a harmonica softly. She is prepared for a night swim, a vividly striped towel thrown over her shoulders. It is apparent that the night’s progress has mellowed her spirit: her face wears a faint smile which is suggestive of those cool, impersonal, all-comprehending smiles on the carved heads of Egyptian or Oriental dieties. Bearing a rum-coco, she approaches the hammock, discovers it empty, the ropes on the floor, and calls softly to Pedro.]

  MAXINE: Shannon ha escapade! [Pedro goes on playing dreamily. She throws back her head and shouts.] SHANNON! [The call is echoed by the hill beyond. Pedro advances a few steps and points under the verandah.]

  PEDRO: Miré. Allé ’hasta Shannon.

  [Shannon comes into view from below the verandah, the severed rope and machete dangling from his hands.]

  MAXINE: What are you doing down there, Shannon?

  SHANNON: I cut loose one of God’s creatures at the end of the rope.

  [Hannah, who has stood motionless with closed eyes behind the wicker chair, goes quietly toward the cubicles and out of the moon’s glare.]

  MAXINE [tolerantly]: What’d you do that for, Shannon.

  SHANNON: So that one of God’s creatures could scramble home safe and free. . . . A little act of grace, Maxine.

  MAXINE [smiling a bit more definitely]: C’mon up here, Shannon. I want to talk to you.

  SHANNON [starting to climb onto the verandah, as Maxine rattles the ice in the coconut shell]: What d’ya want to talk about, Widow Faulk?

  MAXINE: Let’s go down and swim in that liquid moonlight.

  SHANNON: Where did you pick up that poetic expression?

  [Maxine glances back at Pedro and dismisses him with, “Vamos.” He leaves with a shrug, the harmonica fading out.]

  MAXINE: Shannon, I want you to stay with me.

  SHANNON [taking the rum-coco from her]: You want a drinking companion?

  MAXINE: No, I just want you to stay here, because I’m alone here now and I need somebody to help me manage the place.

  [Hannah strikes a match for a cigarette.]

  SHANNON [looking toward her]: I want to remember that face. I won’t see it again.

  MAXINE: Let’s go down to the beach.

  SHANNON: I can make it down the hill, but not back up.

  MAXINE: I’ll get you back up the hill. [They have started off now, toward the path down through the rain forest.] I’ve got five more years, maybe ten, to make this place attractive to the male clientele, the middle-aged ones at least. And you can take care of the women that are with them. That’s what you can do, you know that, Shannon.

  [He chuckles happily. They are now on the path, Maxine half leading half supporting him. Their voices fade as Hannah goes into Nonno’s cubicle and comes back with a shawl, her cigarette left inside. She pauses between the door and the wicker chair and speaks to herself and the sky.]

  HANNAH: Oh, God, can’t we stop now? Finally? Please let us. It’s so quiet here, now.

  [She starts to put the shawl about Nonno, but at the same moment his head drops to the side. With a soft intake of breath, she extends a hand before his mouth to see if he is still breathing. He isn’t. In a panicky moment, she looks right and left for someone to call to. There’s no one. Then she bends to press her head to the crown of Nonno’s and the curtain starts to descend.]

  THE END

  NAZI MARCHING SONG

  Heute wollen wir ein Liedlein singen,

  Trinken wollen wir den kuehlen Wein;

  Und die Glaeser sollen dazu klingen,

  Denn es muss, es muss geschieden sein.

  Gib’ mir deine Hand,

  Deine weisse Hand,

  Leb’wohl, mein Schatz, leb’wohl, mein Schatz

  Lebe wohl, lebe wohl,

  Denn wir fahren. Boom! Boom!

  Denn wir fahren. Boom! Boom!

  Denn wir fahren gegen Engelland. Boom! Boom!

  Let’s sing a little song today,

  And drink some cool wine;

  The glasses should be ringing

  Since we must, we must part.

  Give me your hand,

  Your white hand,


  Farewell, my love, farewell,

  Farewell, farewell,

  Since we’re going—

  Since we’re going—

  Since we’re going against England.

  ACTS OF GRACE

  Tennessee Williams knew well that memory can be a ponderous burden, a tie that shackles the individual to a past from which he or she would perhaps love to escape, but that paradoxically, memory can be a blessing, a prop sustaining one during hard times. Among the treasured memories that bolster me is one of a bitterly cold, snowy evening in Chicago when I experienced perhaps the most remarkable epiphany in theater that I have ever known. I had driven to Chicago in 1961 from Memphis, where I was teaching, for a two-fold purpose: to visit friends and to see the out-of-town premiere of Williams’s latest play, The Night of the Iguana. I had come to love the plays of Williams not only through my connection to him as a Southerner, Mississippi-born as I was, but also through my love of English Romantic poetry, for in those works was to be found the roots of much of the dramatist’s philosophy and method.

  Nothing had prepared this life-long resident of the Deep South for the bitter chill of that Midwest City which was, unknown to me, on the verge of a real blizzard. As we walked from the parking lot to the Blackstone Theatre, we were very near Lake Michigan, and the wind whipping around us was sharply brutal. The warmth of the theater lobby was more than welcome, mixed with the excitement of being present at the birth of a new Williams work, an unknown play, waiting in the wings to astound.

  The cast of that original production was perhaps as fine as any that has been assembled for The Night of the Iguana. Bette Davis, who had been performing mostly in movies for a number of years and thus had an unfortunate tendency to look out into the audience when she was “off camera,” nevertheless embodied the earthiness of Maxine, described by Williams as “affable and rapaciously lusty.” Patrick O’Neal was certainly effective as Shannon although he did not bring to the role the appropriate near-madness that is evident in Richard Burton’s portrayal in the movie. And Alan Webb was a touching Nonno, exhibiting the humor and pathos that are components of the old poet’s character.