One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Directed by Susan Marie Rhea, the Keegan Theatre’s production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is highlighted by a unanimously strong cast starting with Mark A. Rhea, the Keegan Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director, as McMurphy down to the cruel, seemingly piddling nurse’s aides.
Everything from George Lucas’ sparse institutional setting to the clever way the actors stay in character while serving as stagehands between scenes is a thoughtful touch. The nurse’s station is a counter with a sheath of glass symbolically separating the patients from the nurses. The way the microphone prop is used for purposes other than dispensing medication is hilarious.
Matthew Rippetoe’s compositions and Tony Angelini’s sound design are haunting. It has been several days since I have seen the play and I still cannot get the jumbled voices of children singing the folk rhyme, "One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest," out of my head.
Chief Bromden (Kevin Adams) narrates, jowls aquiver, how McMurphy comes to the ward of a State Mental Hospital in the Pacific Northwest in 1962, hoping to avoid the monotony of a stint at the Pendleton Work Farm. When he talks, the others on stage move in stiff slow motion, emphasizing the slow pace at which time passes on the ward.
There are many touching moments that make this production outstanding. The group meetings, in which the patients wear scrubs and white Keds, for one, are pure, controlled chaos.
At one point, Chief Bromden rants until the air is hissing out of his mouth as McMurphy puts his arms around him in a clumsy imitation of a hug. When McMurphy attempts to lift the hospital’s control panel, he appears visibly shaken for the first time. The nighttime aide stumbles across the stage, drunk, making us ponder the insanity of institutions versus the sanity of individuals.
What makes this production both moving and hilarious is the actors’ transformation of potential caricatures into characters. As Billy, the excellent Joe Baker stutters and appears to shrink into himself in the presence of Nurse Ratched (a controlled Sheri S. Herren), who embodies the cool jargonized institution.
The actors are all fascinating to watch. As Harding, a married man who struggles with the fact that he is probably gay, Mike Kozemchak wears a long brown trimmed cardigan and addresses his compatriots as "fellow psychopaths" in his capacity as president of the Patients’ Council. Kozemchak’s neck muscles strain to overcome his character’s habitual soft spokenness.
Even the "weaselly fart of a doctor," Dr. Spivey (K.J. Thorarinsson) inhabits his role fully. The actors are so convincing that, when Herren and Adams take a bow, holding hands, my companion wonders why the two would "ever do that."
