One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest keeps to film’s favorites
I regretfully have never read the novel, but due to the fact that I have a not-so-secret old man crush on Jack Nicholson, I adore the film. Which is why I was excited to hear that Out of Box Theatre was putting One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest back on stage and taking on these iconic characters. Sitting in the audience I was ready for the humor, the overwhelming frustration and hatred for Nurse Ratched, and a love affair with McMurphy’s antiauthority attitude. But even more than that, I wanted to see each character in a new way – the stage way – not the Nicholson treatment, or the the Fletcher, I wanted it to be completely fresh. And what I got felt a little bit second-hand.
Directed by Barbara Rudy, the play took place entirely in the mental institution. The lines between crazy and not were clearly drawn with the glass partitions and treatment of patients from the beginning. The camaraderie among the patients fueled the intensity of the emotions against the authoritarian figures. All things expected of this play were delivered, the acting was well done even if sometimes feeling a little unauthentic in terms of acting insane instead of actually being insane. But nothing to ruin a moment or take the audience out of the action on stage.
The biggest conundrum I faced while sitting in the audience, was that I could see the influence the film held on each actors interpretation of the characters. Yes, the emotional quality portrayed is something that can’t really be toyed with from adaptation to adaptation. But character choices are, to a certain extent. And many of these choices played it safe and extremely close to what their film counterparts did.
Nurse Ratched, played by artistic director Carolyn Choe, was still the monotoned speaking, evil bitch that she was in the film. She is supposed to be unlikable, but I wanted to see how she could be disliked in a whole new fashion. If I closed my eyes I could still hear Louise Fletcher. The same occurred with McMurphy, played by Travis Young. And Nicholson can not be duplicated. I wanted more insertion of the actors self, more genuine, uninfluenced interpretations of character. And what I got was what seemed like audience pleasing, non-risk taking choices.
The one most noticeable change was the fact that Chief Bromden’s (Cooper Andrews) character was vastly different from the film. It increased my curiosity to see the portrayal in the book, to see what was actually behind this mysterious man. In the film’s version Chief was strong, silent, vacant of emotion or reaction. In Out of Box Theatre’s production, he was physically big and strong, but mentally weak and almost childlike. It was interesting to see the mental breakdown of this man who stood as such a fixture to McMurphy.
This production brought up the issue that I’m sure many theater directors face: if taking on an older text, a well known production, how do you toe the line of making an audience happy and giving them what they expect and at the same time put your balls in your hand and toss them out to the wolves? In this case, the gonads were clutched tightly, too fearful to completely let loose.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is playing at Out of Box Theatre’s space in Marietta, Alley Stage, till March 23. For tickets and show times, visit outofboxtheatre.com.
