Masquers Theatre presentation One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, an internationally acclaimed novel by Ken Kesey, has made its way to the Masquers Theatre in Soap Lake for a five-weekend run that ends this coming weekend.

It stars Curtis Davis, of Coulee Dam, as Chief Bromden, and Ephrata-area actors Clint Pozzi as R.P. McMurphy, and Joanne Bracht as Nurse Ratched in the lead roles. The live performance based on the 1963 Dale Wasserman script, is under the direction of Carol Boyce of Coulee Dam, an actor in her first directing role. She is carrying on the vision of Peggy Dubey, the show's original director who passed away early in April.

And what a vision this timeless two-act show is. The Chief, with Davis wearing a Superman T-shirt and with a push-broom as his sidekick (prop), is show-cased and spotlighted in both acts, with thought-provoking dialogue delivered in his strong, eloquent manner.

He opens the show, which is set in the "cuckoo's nest," a day room at a state-run mental facility where the patients, nurses, aides and two of McMurphy's gal friends, act their way through a full range of emotional highs and lows, drawing the audience into their everyday world with bursts of funny, and literally crazy antics. They share their hopes, basic unmet needs, and fears, all inside a facility where a Dr. Spivey, playfully played by one of the theater's veteran actors, Bob Jasman, wants to do right by the patients, especially McMurphy.

But the doc ends up knuckling under to Nurse Ratched, played by the all-white-clad Joanne Bracht, who both talks and walks her part with finesse. Ratched spends most of her shifts holding meetings where she systematically drives the inmates deeper into insanity; most of them are in the nest voluntarily and don't want to face reality on the outside.

When R.P. McMurphy, with Pozzi's version so believable you want to join him on stage, lands in the loony bin to avoid a work detail so he can have a bed and three squares a day, all heck breaks loose; with his card games and gambling, man talk, jokes and his ability to get under Nurse Ratched's skin, his days are numbered. But not before he gets the Nest in an uproar over a baseball game, with all of the patients pretending to watch it and cheering loudly to irk Nurse Ratched, who refuses, as she's does with all of their demands, to change their TV watching schedule so they can catch and bet on the World Series. McMurphy with his catch phrases and perfectly matched facial expressions, gets a party going, complete with in-nest concocted booze and two female guests: Candy Starr, (Dalila Shawhan) and Sandra (Patty Jardine) crawl through an unlocked window for a fun-filled evening.

Billy Bibbitt, the youngest patient, is played by talented Jeff Ames, who stutters and has mother-girlfriend issues that Nurse Ratched uses to push him over the edge of no return. Ames nails his part. Patients Scanion, played by Antonio Aguilar, Cheswick (Darryl Pheasant), and Martini (Justin Rowland) give us a look at some believable cuckoos. And then there's Ruckly, a zombie-like patient with staring eyes and nothing much else going on after his shock treatment, played by Zach Knudsen.

Rounding out the cast is Aide Williams (Margaret Angell), Nurse Ratched's sneak, Nurse Flinn, (Holly Petersen), the "eye candy" character, night aide Turkle (Randy Brooks), an on-the-job drunk, and Lui Navarro as the technician who revs up the "juice" for shock treatments ordered by Ratched to control and "help" certain unruly patients like McMurphy.

When Chief Bromden shares his views on Santa Claus, and what his "Poppa" told him about the old ways, the theater is quiet, with some in the audience leaning forward to catch and share his words, and when the Chief "talks" to McMurphy after not speaking to anyone for years, their discussion on the call of the wild geese and Chief's need to go home, is memorable.

If you know the story line, you know what eventually happens to McMurphy, but if you are part of a live audience, you might do as I did, gasp out loud when his time is up. But the Chief gets out of the loony bin alive and heads for his long lost home. It's freedom for him, and business as usual for those too scared to leave the Cuckoo's Nest.

If you go, the Masquers Theatre is located on the Soap Lake's main street. Performances start at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 16-17, and at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 18. Tickets are priced at $12, general, $10, seniors and students. Call 509/246-2611 for reservations.