Rebel yell

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/10/2010 (5783 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The real jolt felt from the psychiatric-ward drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the shocking lack of subtlety and ambiguity in Dale Wasserman’s stage adaptation of Ken Kesey’s popular anti-establishment novel.

Driving the action in the well-presented, funny Manitoba Theatre Centre season-opener is the riveting battle waged between free-spirited rule-breaker Randle P. McMurphy and control-freak disciplinarian Nurse Ratched in the dreary, oppressively spotless day room of a state mental hospital in 1961.

There’s no chance of mixing up the good guys (freedom fighter McMurphy and his band of fellow nut jobs) from the bad, (Ratched and her minions, who relentlessly insist on discipline and conformity) — even if our hero is wearing the black hat, ah, tuque, and the villain is in the starched white nurse’s cap.

Despite its revival in a more cynical era, Cuckoo’s Nest still makes it quite easy to respond to its cheery authority-is-bad message and get behind the Messiah-like McMurphy and his fellow underdog loonies.

The latter, an assortment of eccentric characters, are routinely roughed up by the aides and live in constant fear of authoritarian Nurse Ratched. One of them is the stoic Chief Bromden, a tall Native American who is supposedly a deaf mute, although because he narrates the 160-minute-long (including intermission) revival, the audience is immediately let in on his ruse.

Their soul-sapping routine of meds, therapy and emotional abuse is interrupted by the arrival of the fiery, lovable con man who thinks he can pull a fast one by trading his stay at a prison farm for one at the funny farm. McMurphy represents the subversive spirit of the early SSRq60s and he immediately leads a rebellion against Ratched’s power. The highlight of that campaign — at least for the audience at Wednesday’s dress rehearsal — is an uproarious scene in which the patients are punished with no television but whoop it up as if a baseball game is on the screen anyway.

All actors playing McMurphy do so in the shadow of Jack Nicholson’s iconic turn in the legendary 1975 movie. However, Shaun Smyth emerges unscathed and triumphant in this MTC-Theatre Calgary co-production. His winning portrayal, aided by the competent hand of director Miles Potter, suggests a street-smart survivor, a chatterbox ever looking for an angle but unable to turn a blind eye to needless oppression. Smyth projects an unbeat, randy bad boy who will not be denied.

As McMurphy’s nemesis, Nurse Ratched is given a more understated performance than expected by the impressive Vickie Papavs. She radiates her character’s unnerving calm and exhibits a chilling delight in using red tape to emasculate her charges.

The greater importance given Chief Bromden is one of the key differences from the film, and Bernard Starlight provides psychological complexity through his paranoid internal visions.

Among the lovable lunatics are several Winnipeg character actors not seen for a while but who make valuable contributions to Cuckoo’s Nest. Stan Lesk does a nice turn as the emotionally ravaged Cheswick, as does Frank Adamson playing the doomsday-prophesizing Scanlon.

Jon Ted Wynne’s gives a little spine to Dr. Spivey, the institution’s self-effacing psychiatrist. Trevor Rueger’s stuttering, sexually damaged Bibbit is a heartbreaker, while Graham Percy’s Dale Harding seems saner than anyone on staff.

Despite the tragic climax, it’s hard not to be left feeling buoyed by Kesey’s cry for the oppressed to break free from the grasp of tyrants.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca

THEATRE REVIEW

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Manitoba Theatre Centre

To Nov. 6

Tickets: $37-$73

4 out of five stars