Theatre
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Manoel Island

Postulating a firm belief in what is “right” and conventionally accepted as “normal”, the rigidity of mid-20th century social behaviour, harking back to earlier social mores while facing rapidly changing ideas in the field of medical science, led to gross mismanagement of delicate situations which required a gentler human touch.

One of the strongest social commentaries to emerge from 1960s America is Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was adapted for the stage by Dale Wasserman. TNT Theatre Britain’s latest touring performance at the Manoel Theatre last weekend, produced by the American Drama Group Europe, proved to be a highly polished performance which gave valuable added insight into how psychiatric illness actually reflects what is going on outside mental institutions.

Nurse Ratched is a bully who controls the patients with a fist of iron but sugar coats it so well by using a deadly combination of guilt and guile, that the patients, who are often referred to as inmates, are powerless against her.

The prison-like element is enforced by Randal MacMurphy’s admission as a small-time criminal who goes in for evaluation in the hope that his prison sentence will be lived out in relative comfort. Gareth Radcliffe’s MacMurphy was a strong opponent to Lucia McAnespie’s Nurse Ratched and the dynamic between the two created a credible power struggle and analysis of defiance which was much appreciated by the audience due to their well-paced and quick-fire performances.

Their evident face-offs were contrasted by the silent yet highly effective detachment shown by Chief Bromden, a half-caste Indian, played sensitively by Robert McCafferty who is thought to be deaf-mute but is in reality just faking his affliction because he has become disillusioned with the world and himself. He is a physically large and imposing man, who “feels small” because he cannot assert himself in a society which has become stiflingly oppressive despite its liberal, revolutionary mindset.

In the Chief’s mental wanderings – which take the form of tribal-styled dance movements and tableau-like effects thanks to the actors’ doubling as mummers to Eric Tressie-Lavigne’s choreography set to Paul Flush’s original music and the good use of dramatic lighting – the tone of existentialist exploration is clearly evident. But more than just the quest for man’s purpose in life is analysed by the play. MacMurphy befriends the Chief as well as Glyn Connop’s homosexual Harding and young Billy Bibbet, played by an excellent Russell Clough, whose irrational fear of his mother’s disappointment leaves him incapable of forming any emotional bond with members of the opposite sex, which has both these characters suffering sexual repression.

The anarchic streak in MacMurphy urges them all to re-assert their independence from Nurse Ratched but his plan ultimately fails when his planned escape following a drunken party on the ward, during which Billy loses his virginity to Candy, ironically doubled by Lucia McAnespie – with all the Freudian implications that that carries – is foiled by an intoxicated sleep which has him caught, chastised and sent off to be lobotomised, following his attempt to strangle Nurse Ratched for having driven Billy to suicide in a scene that was both shocking and poignant. Mr Connop’s effete Harding had just the right measure of maniacal insight and his role in assessing the patient-authority situation was uncannily reminiscent of how the outside world and power machines treat ordinary, vulnerable people like Billy.

Director Paul Stebbings has managed to make Kesey’s concept applicable to the contemporary situation by leading the audience to wonder whether in today’s day and age we are still suffering from a disconnectedness between the self and society and the power struggle which ensues when we try to quell discrimination and reclaim our identities. Arno Scholz’s simple, yet effective set design, in particular the divisory image of the nurse’s booth/station, can be seen as a metaphor for daily lives fraught with the stresses of a digitally advanced, techno-centric workplace which is fast becoming impersonal and leads to self-displacement and depression. Chief Bromden’s final attempt to literally break away and escape all this and become “big” again just as MacMurphy taught him to “think big”, is the ultimate act of defiance and bid for freedom.

This TNT Theatre performance has once again proven that good theatre can comment, stimulate and entertain in equally laudable measures.