While Brustein says that Williams'splay offers some enjoyment, he ultimately finds Night of the Iguana to be "too aimless, leisurely, and formless to satisfy" a discerning theatregoer.

In The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams has composed a little nocturnal mood music for mutved strings, beautifully performed by some superb instrumentalists, but much too aimless, leisurely, and formless to satisfy the attentive ear. I should add that I prefer these Lydian measures to the unmelodious banalities of his Period of Adjustment or the strident masochistic dissonances of Sweet Bird of Youth; for his new materials are handled with relative sincerity, the dialogue has a wistful, graceful, humorous warmth, the characters are almost recognizable as human beings, and the atmosphere is lush and fruity without being outrageously unreal (no Venus flytraps snapping at your fingers). With this play, Williams has returned once again to the primeval jungle, where...