Preview
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
Echo 37 Productions
Starring Tom Cuthbertson and Michelle Warkentin
Directed by Dave Gagnier
Adapted by Dale Wasserman from the novel by Ken Kesey
Runs April 17 to May 3
Engineered Air Theatre (CPA)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest director Dave Gagnier knows he has some gigantic shoes to fill.
It’s difficult for the play to live up to people’s expectations of the 1975 film starring Jack Nicholson, which won Oscars for best actor, actress, director and picture. But Gagnier wants people to know that the show succeeds on its own terms.
"People want to see a certain show that they remember, but we can't have people doing Jack Nicholson impressions, and have people trying to be Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched," he says. "They have to be characters on their own terms, and make it a story how it's supposed to be. I mean, when people read the book, they certainly didn't picture Nicholson, and they had their own character in mind, just as we do here."
The play, adapted by Dale Wasserman from Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, revolves around characters living in a ward of a Pacific Northwest mental institution, and fellow patient Randle Patrick McMurphy’s attempt to rescue them.
"Within that controlled society, run by the head nurse, someone enters the group and throws it into upheaval: Randle P. McMurphy," Gagnier says. "He has no understanding of what the patients’ limitations in society are, so he's trying to wake them up and get them out there. So the universal theme is just a question for the audience as to whether it's better for him to try and wake them up, or whether or not it's better for them to just stay asleep in this ward."
The play follows the novel much more closely than the film, telling the story through monologues by Chief Bromden (Tom Cuthbertson), a patient feigning catatonia. The film tells the story through McMurphy.
"You're seeing the play through Chief Bromden's eyes, but at the same time, (McMurphy) represents the audience, coming into this place where everything is foreign, so you can see it through him," Gagnier says.
Since One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was released, mental health treatments have changed drastically. When the book was written, institutions like the one in Cuckoo’s Nest were dumping grounds for a miscellany of people with mental problems.
"I mean, we're talking about a 40-years' difference between what's going on in the mental health field now, and what happened then," Gagnier says. "Older gentlemen suffering from dementia, people who would otherwise be treatable for things like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, were grouped together and thrown into this situation where someone with some kind of medical know-how would deal with them with the same medication that they'd throw at anyone else."
Gagnier gave his cast a taste of mental dysfunction by sending them to the front lines of mental health care. Through guided tours of the Rockyview Hospital mental health ward, he offered his actors an opportunity to interact with mental health professionals and ask them about the conditions their characters suffered from.
"I think there's a tendency for anyone who auditions for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to want to play a whack-job and lose themselves in the role, but it's so easy to go over the top," he says.
"Part of the rehearsal process was to speak with three different professionals who could give a character guidance and (thereby) an understanding for the audience about how far the profession has progressed."
During rehearsals, Gagnier knew he was on the ball when Michelle Warkentin, who plays Nurse Ratched, began complaining about the same things Fletcher complained about during the shooting of the 1975 film.
"Fletcher felt so outside of the cast, and like people literally hated her through the process, and she did these things, like she'd flash the group during therapy sessions just to break things up, and to feel a little human, and Michelle said the other night that she kind of wonders if she's fitting in," Gagnier says. "She feels like the cast doesn't like her, which is so not true, but when you're playing a character like that, it can be taxing." |
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