Chagrin Valley Play Well Done,

but Critic Feels Like Iguana

By PETER BELLAMY

are effective.

Bert Dragin, another actor confuses seduction with love, Tennessee Williams' drama, of proven skill, has an enor-and Dorothy Bruggerman as "The Night of the Iguana," is mous amount of lines in the the mannish chaperone also the current stage attraction role of the disgraced minister at Chagrin Theater in the The only quarrel with the of God beset by mental play, and it is a serious, lastValley, and well done it is. demons. He registers solidly Elark A. Hakanson who ing one, is the quality of the the character's complete emo-drama. This observer conenters Carnegie Tech School tional imbalance. As the of the Drama on scholarship! tinues to find it unnecessarily maundering grandfather, this fall, again displays dra-A. E. Westover III appears prone to sensationalism akin unhealthy, contrived and matic talent far beyond her more senile than a prehistoric to writing dirty words on the years. She takes the role of mastodon. the bloodless, frustrated spin-

sidewalk. Williams also takes

ster whose decades of supBARBARA HASKIN, as the time out to wallow in the porting her grandfather, a lusty widow, lends her role scatalogical. 97-year-old poet, have been a palpable, convincing earthHis gamiest characters are like an albatross around her iness. Sally Lloyd, as the a lesbian and a disgraced neck. hysterical college girl who minister of God. He is a re-

ligious nut who has been suspended from the pulpit for committing heresy and fornication in the same week, which is certainly covering the ground. The large gold cross around his neck belies his standing as a liar and debauchee.

THE SHOW is like an absurd freak show. Much of the conversation is strained and on the looney side. No amount of direction can create a stimu¡lating tempo.

The play takes place in 1940 in a broken down hotel on the west coast of Mexico, whither the main characters-all pilgrims to oblivion-havę gathered through devious ways. All are victims of fate like the rest of us, but none excite much sympathy. The minister may be crazy, but he's still an offensive bum.

Title of the play stems from Williams' comparison of the plight of his characters to that of those desert lizards the guanas-tethered, abused and fattened up for eating purposes by Mexican peasants. I'm getting to feel like an iguana myself every time I see this play.