The Night of the Iguana
Shortly before the opening of the play, Shannon is accused of committing statutory rape of a 16-year-old girl,[2] Charlotte Goodall, who is among his current group of tourists.
As the curtain rises, Shannon and a group of women arrive at a cheap hotel on the coast of Mexico managed by his friends Fred and Maxine Faulk.
Struggling emotionally, Shannon tries to manage his tour party, who have turned against him for having sexual relations with the minor, and Maxine is interested in him for purely carnal reasons.
Minor characters in the play include a group of German tourists whose Nazi marching songs paradoxically lighten the heavier themes of the play while suggesting the horrors of World War II;[3] the Mexican "boys" Maxine employs to help run the hotel who ignore her laconic commands; and Judith Fellowes, the "butch" vocal teacher charged with Charlotte's care during the trip.
Maxine, Davis's role, is a lusty life-force of a woman, with some good comic lines, who is offstage for a significant part of the play, while Hannah is on.
The cast includes Sue Lyon, Cyril Delevanti, Grayson Hall (who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Miss Fellowes) and Barbara Joyce (who later became an artist).
The cast was headlined by Richard Chamberlain (Reverend Shannon), Eleanor Parker (Maxine Faulk), Dorothy McGuire (Hannah Jelkes), Raymond Massey (Jonathan "Nonno" Coffin), and Allyn Ann McLerie (Miss Judith Fellowes): featured cast members were Susan Lanier (Charlotte Goodall), Jennifer Savidge (Hilda), Norma Connolly (Frau Fahrenkopf), Michael Ross Verona (Herr Fahrenkopf), Benjamin Stewart (Jake Latta), Ben Van Vacter (Wolfgang), Matt Bennett (Hank), José Martin (Pedro), and Ricardo Landeros (Pancho).
The production encored at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway with a limited December 16 1976 to February 20 1977 run, with three recastings among the headliners: Sylvia Miles (Maxine), William Roerick (Nonno), and Barbara Caruso (Miss Fellowes).
