Randle P. McMurphy, the star of Pentacle’s new production, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” is smart enough to go crazy. Because for a convict like himself, being crazy means finishing out his sentence in a comfortable hospital bed instead of a work farm. He enters the Salem Psychiatric Hospital (Pentacle’s wide tribute to Oregon author Ken Kesey, the actual film location of the play’s movie version, and the impending opening of the Salem Hospital Museum) ready to pass a few easy months, building a comfortable nest among the loonies.
Until he encounters the first slice of the razor-sharp smile of the Big Nurse, Miss Ratched.
McMurphy can see immediately the latent nastiness in Ratched, and vows to bring it to the surface. What begins as an churlish adolescent struggle against authority quickly escalates, until McMurphy finds himself the overwhelmed champion of not only his own life, but all those around him.
David Ballantyne leads the cast with dependable passion and energy as McMurphy. Ballantyne portrays McMurphy with the irascibility of a beloved but troubled teenage son. His smile and puppy dog eyes are always there to remind us that he’s a good boy, deep down.
Nurse Ratched is one of the most complex villains in all of fiction. She represents a terrifyingly common aspect of humanity; people give love and comfort as a way to control and abuse. The sweeter and more maternal the portrayal, the more deeply disturbing the carefully measured sadism in her behavior. Tonya Morgan’s portrayal doesn’t delve too deeply into the dichotomy of care versus cruelty; her Ratched is a more discernible villain, with a hard insincere smile and clear hunger for power.
Director Jo Dodge’s entire ensemble cast is strong in Cuckoo. Among them, Benny Bower, Robert Breyer, Robert Herzog and Neil Vannice, as McMurphy’s fellow inmates, make up a Greek Chorus of likable madness. They aren’t scene stealers, instead consistently adding warmth, laughs, and pathos to every scene.
Ross Waite’s Chief Bromden stands silently in the corner for most of the play, looking very worried. His character’s monologues are mad, beautiful poetry, and he is the main force behind the play’s mad and beautiful climax.
Tom Hewitt quickly finds a powerful stride as the most sensible of the inmates, Dale Harding. Hewitt is able to portray the quiet truth that though Harding presents himself as a maladjusted nebbish, he is certainly the sanest person in the room. Jason Cude succeeds fantastically in making himself very small and fragile as Billy Bibbit, a young boy at the mercy of the poisoned affections of the powerful women in his life.
Jeff Baer is an example of what an excellent actor can do with even a small role. His Dr. Spivey is both comically charming and maddeningly useless. Likewise, Jodi Deming has a brief time onstage as the sweet tramp Candy Starr. Speaking much more with her comfortable loose body than words, Candy is easily one of the most lovable characters in the play.
Pentacle’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is great theatre. It is wonderfully vulgar, nuanced, tragic and very funny. What makes a person too small? What motivates them to take on the pain of growing big again, and why do they sometimes fail? These are just some of the questions Cuckoo gently demands its audience to consider, between bouts of laughter.
