Rebecca Anastasi speaks to artistic director Paul Stebbings about adapting and performing the American classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest within different cultural contexts.
In 1973, the film adaptation of the American classic, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was released to critical and public acclaim.
Starring Jack Nicholson as the protagonist Randle McMurphy, the film went on the win five major Academy Awards and, in 1993, was selected for preservation on the American National Film Registry.
Yet, despite this, Kesey distanced himself from the film after creative differences with the producers over casting and narrative point-of-view in the initial preproduction stages. Indeed, many critics attacked the film, blaming it for streamlining the complexity of the original novel.
Now, in an attempt to restore the complexity of the book and to bring it to a larger audience, a new adaptation has been made for the stage by TNT theatre Britain and the American Drama Group Europe (ADGE).
Directed by Paul Stebbings, who founded TNT in 1980, the play integrates physical theatre with music and weaves it into the story.
As stated in the production notes, it, therefore, attempts to “rescue its rich poetry and tragic complexity from the simplifications of the famous Hollywood version”.
This is highlighted by Stebbings, who describes the process of adaptation:
“We started from the book. Then we spent a long time rehearsing, concentrating on the main characters and conflicts and trying to discover what we needed to in rehearsal.”
However, they also used the play text by Daniel Wasserman and added movement sections, including dance, to reflect the original book’s use of dreams, halllucinations and nightmares of the characters – especially the Chief.
“It’s a very physical show with lots of action. In theatre things happpen – Shakespeare teaches us this. In theatre, complex and entertaining ideas and events can be communicated directly through action,” Stebbings insists.
“Theatre is live; it is the art of people and in a play like this where people are so important we identify better with flesh and blood than we can with celluloid, which places another medium between us and life. There is a unique contact between stage and audience.”
This corporeality is one of the characteristics of the play, a quality also brought to the fore by the cast members, including Gareth Radcliff (MacMurphy), Lucia McAnespie (Nurse Ratched), Glyn Connop (Harding), Robert McCafferty (Chief Bromden) and Russell Clugh (Billy Boy).
TNT is a physical theatre company, which means they express not just the outer reality through movement, but also the internal life of the characters.
For example, in the novel Kesey talks about the patients belief that they are controlled by magnets under the floor and manipulated by robots. In the play, this is seen as a dance piece.
“Audiences respond to viruosity – we have had enough of actors being realistic on TV. We believe theatre should combine all the live arts: dance movement, music and visual imagery as well as words.
“Everyone is hyped up before a performance – this is a production that requires concentration and full-on emotion, and everyone has to be on the ball. There are no small roles or easy scenes. The actor has to impress with their skills, just as they would in traditional commedia dell’arte,” Stebbings says.
However, the play does not only emphasise the corporeal but also the musical. The music is composed before rehearsals by Paul Flush, Tony Christie’s regular musical director, and then edited to the physical action on stage, thus integrating music and performance.
“The score is used almost as an extra character. In this way it is like film: the music expresses not just the daily reality of the hospital but also the inner world of the patients, so there is also native American music, horror film music, when needed, and, at other times, elevator music, which upsets McMurphy.”
TNT and ADGE have performed the play several hundred times since last October, in many countries, including Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Slovenia and Israel. It will end in Singapore on April 31.
Stebbings says they are happy to add Malta to the list.
“We think theatre is a language, especially if the style is theatrical enough. We do not change our productions for different countries or audiences – the same play is performed in London as it is in Shanghai or indeed in Malta,” he explains.
“Our touring teaches us that peope are more similar than they like to think the world over. We are all humans: our differences are less than our similarities. One world, one theatre.”
And just as the future of Kesey’s story is bound up with its various incarnations, the future for Stebbings, TNT theatre Britain and ADGE is linked to sharing this vision of community and solidarity.
“We are scheduled to tour Japan in May with Much Ado About Nothing. We wish and hope we still can, so we can show some solidarity to the poor people of north Japan, where TNT have performed for over 10 years. We dedicate our perfomances to them.”
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest will be staged at the Manoel Theatre on Saturday and Sunday.