The Lake County Theatre Co. is presenting “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” at the Gard Street School in Kelseyville for three weekends, and there are more performances to go on Friday, March 8, through Sunday, March 10.
I went to opening night, which I rarely do, and I didn’t regret it. I have been disappointed in the past on opening nights by incompletely rehearsed plays, but this was an exception to that, and if the LCTC keeps up this kind of self-discipline, opening night crowds should increase.
I went to see it without having seen the movie (1975) or the play (1963,) or having read the book (1962), so I was spared the distraction of comparing the local production with any of those.
Most people say that the play is very different from the movie, and both very different from the book. The novel was the 20th in a list of the 100 best books of the 20th century, the movie won a number of Oscars and the play was a prize-winner on Broadway.
Being around 70, I remember the furor that Ken Kesey’s bestseller caused when it was published. It was a blazing indictment of the psychiatric institutions of the time, and the methods of mind control used then (and to some extent still) in such places, mostly just to keep the inmates quiet and obedient.
That these methods, including heavy drugging, electro-shock and prefrontal lobotomy, had little or no therapeutic value was a hot topic then, and the discussions in the public arena led to the closing of most mental hospitals in California and the rest of the country in the 1970s.
I remember hearing from my friends that it was a very funny book. It is a funny play. The humor comes mostly from the wit of the leading characters. Insanity is not in itself amusing. If anyone close to you was ever seriously disturbed, you know that they, and all who cared for them, were deeply miserable.
It is not a situation comedy. The plot line is a tragedy, in that the hero, not insane, is destroyed by his own strengths and weaknesses interacting with the institution around him, but there is almost continuous farce on the way to the denouement. The cast performs this tricky balancing act, and the direction is very good. You will laugh and laugh and laugh and in the end you will be shocked and sad.
Armand Plato, the director, is a fresh face around here, but he has been directing small theater productions elsewhere for years, and he has a fine touch.
There are some actors that we have not seen much of before, such as Larry and Zoe Richardson, who we know primarily as very talented dancers. I admire the whole cast, so I will not be itemizing them. Go see the play and take the program home; they are all displayed in it, with photos and much more information than I want to include here.
Tim Barnes as R. P. McMurphy plays the lead with great energy and wit, which is no surprise. The biggest surprise in this cast is Diana Schmidt. We have seen her so often as a ditzy blond bombshell, and to see her here as Nurse Ratched, who is self-righteous, clever, controlling and just generally all-around mean, is quite an illumination. She was in danger of being type-cast. Now we all know better.
Clearly, since I am writing about it at all, I feel that I can recommend this play; I don’t write about productions I can’t recommend. For all the laughter, it is a serious play, and a work of art.
Christian Yeagan is a member of the Lake County Arts Council.
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