*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* review

Stick It to the Witch

a review of *Cuckoo’s Nest* (at Spokane Civic Theatre through Jan. 25)

Laughing at a freak show: That’s the response that the opening night audience gave to the Civic’s production of *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.* One by one, the cuckoos filed onto the play’s insane asylum set with their hallucinations and facial tics and various manias, their sexual hang-ups, their hopeless catatonia.
And the opening-night audience — perhaps expecting a sit com, perhaps just nervously egging on their friends up there onstage — kept laughing at every little defect. Mental illness: Such a laugh riot!
Because it’s technically proficient, well-directed and (mostly) well-acted — and because it revives an American classic in a thoughtful and relevant way — Yvonne A.K. Johnson’s production (on the Civic’s Main Stage through Jan. 25) deserves a better response from its listeners.

For one thing, they’re witnessing a performance from the central character that’s powerful, energetic and wide-ranging. As R.P. McMurphy, the rootin’-tootin’ catalyst who invades this morgue-like nuthouse with a wallop of energy, George Green keeps the frenzy firing at high levels.
Johnson has directed Green’s first face-off with Nurse Ratched (Chasity Kohlman) so that it flips from a struggle of wills into something sexual. When showing off his rock climber’s physique, his come-on is half sexual, half playful — boyish and dangerous, all at the same time. And McMurphy is nothin’ but a handful of trouble, of course. But when Green confronts a momentary failure and makes the transition from laughter to weeping — entirely non-verbally — it can take your breath away.
Too often, Green relies on a tongue-waggling, look-at-me-being-frisky attitude. But the range of his performance — and the sadness over McMurphy’s defeat — outweigh such carping. If Jack Nicholson was growly mutt with an insane glint in his eye, Green is a Jack Russell terrier who longs for freedom on the other side of the fence — and just might chomp on your leg to get there. He’s like a force of nature. Green’s performance is a rounded and accomplished star turn.

His nemesis is a lot less showy. Kohlman captures Nurse Ratched’s ice-queen demeanor, her starched propriety. She’s a dominatrix wrapped inside a prude: She wants to be physically sadistic but contents herself — restrains herself — to merely psychological control. Kohlman could afford to make Nurse Rat-shit’s sadistic glee more evident, especially in the way she domineers over poor little intimidated-and-stuttering Billy Bibbit (Paul Villabrille, a sad sack but trying to change). But she’s masterful at letting Ratched’s vulnerability show, in stages, somewhere behind the eyes or in the way her starched uniform sags just a bit. (In the basketball scene, putting the ball behind her back was an inspired choice: “I can play this game even better than you, boys,” she seems to suggest.)
As Harding, the leader of the wacked-out inmates, Thomas Heppler shines, showing off with his hands and his vocabulary (but ineffectually). In one sequence, Heppler makes the transition from trying to laugh off his sexual neurosis to angrily denouncing the woman who worsened it. (The audience simply laughed. But the pain was real.)

In his most recent stage adaptation, Dale Wasserman substitutes monologues for Chief Bromden’s narration of Ken Kesey’s novel. In the monologues, the Chief’s connection to nature and his dislike of machines are emphasized both by David Baker’s lighting design and by Charles Mix’s sound effects. As the Chief, however, William R. Lund begins his initial monologues too melodramatically, leaving himself nowhere to go. Physically — lumbering across the stage with his head down and crazy-hair obscuring his face — Lund is just right. The contrast between mute Chief and angry Chief is stark and effective. But when you’re screaming defiance at the Combine and pleading with Papa at high decibels from the start, there’s not much room for ratcheting up the emotions later on.
In a somewhat similar way, in the opening scene, Johnson’s asylum patients are trying too hard to establish their quirkiness, their oddball mannerisms. Everything’s played too much for comedy, as if issuing an invitation to laugh at the freaks; everyone’s too intent on “acting.” But after this initial stumble, the ensemble melds and glows.

*Cuckoo’s Nest,* a serious play that blends tragedy and hopefulness, nevertheless has its humorous moments. But they’re subtle and earned. Smiling because a rabble-rouser like McMurphy has partly succeeded in inspiring some feeble sheep to stand up and fight for their own rights is one thing; laughing at the oddities of the mentally ill is quite another.
*Cuckoo’s Nest,* seen aright, can be transformative — not just in getting us not to laugh at neurotics, but in getting us to change our own wills. If McMurphy — who’s out only for a good time and No. 1 — can sacrifice himself for the sake of a few downtrodden others, then maybe the rest of us can stand up to bullies and incompetent politicians, too. The Civic’s production goes a long way toward making us feel that kind of transformation right in the gut. It’s a visceral and effective show.