Customer Reviews

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest : A Play in Two Acts

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This play follows more closely the book than the movie, the dialouge is a little flat at times, but ultimately stays true to the authors story.

How many works of art have three hit incarnations?

This was an outstanding novel, an outstanding movie, and is an outstanding play as well.

Randle McMurphy seems like the kind of boisterous rowdy that you could love or hate after meeting him in a bar. He is full of vitality and humor, and is never afraid to stand up to any authority he perceives as being wrong-headed.

When he's sentenced to an asylum, and comes into conflict with the wonderfully wicked Nurse Ratched, a war ensures that escalates beyond all reason. Ratched is determined to preserve her dictatorial authority over the ward, and McMurphy is equally determined to rebel.

The story line also features a cast of unforgettable supporting characters, from the strong and stoic Chief Bromdem to the pathetically vulnerable Billy Bibbit. Their background noise, and their status as pawns in the ongoing chess match between McMurphy and Ratched, breathe life into the play and elevate it above other plays.

While the issue of patient abuse in mental wards has long since become old news (thanks in part to the novel), the universal issues of human dignity and compassion are what ultimately makes this play tick.

I recommend this play, both to prospective readers and to theater folks trying to decide on their next production. This is a story that doesn't get stale.

I saw this play last night, and I have to say, it was probably the most powerful and moving experience I've ever had. It is, of course, also, one of the most depressing and terrifying things I've seen. I was still shaking the next morning. Absolutely incredible. If you see a performance advertised, SEE IT.

Great condition and it arrived when it said it would. I would reccommend this company to everyone without any reservations.

Adapted by Dale Wasserman for the stage from Ken Kesey's famous novel, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST hit the stage in 1963 with Kirk Douglas in the role of McMurphy, a rebellious prisoner who feigns insanity to escape the hard labor of the county farm. But McMurphy has erred: he has moved from a comparatively sensible world of guards and cells to the domain of "the big nurse," better known as Nurse Ratched. She has no patience with McMurphy's rebelliousness--nor will she stop at anything to maintain control of her ward, including using shock treatment and lobotomy as punshiments and weapons.

Like the novel on which it was based, the play CUCKOO'S NEST was and is extremely allegorical, with McMurphy representing the 1950s and 1960s counterculture and Nurse Ratched the establishment against which he ineffectually beats his head. It is partly because of this that the play seems a little dated. But the elements of shock treatment and lobotomy are truly dated. Known today as electro convulsive therapy, shock treatment still has its adherents, but most look upon it as a relic of the past that is better dismissed than practiced. As for lobotomy, a horrendous process that basically turned the brain into something akin to scrambled eggs, it is no longer practiced at all, and modern doctors, nurses, and institutions look upon it as a horror straight out of the middle ages. In consequence, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST must be staged as a period piece: it must be presented as very distinctly 1960s or better yet 1950s.

Inasmuch as they arise from the same source, both the stage play and the film are very similar. But there are differences, and these are primarily in the handling of Nurse Ratched, who seems much more dispicable in book and film than in the play. Whatever the case, the script is an interesting one, the story memorable, and it has remained popular on the professional stage (it received a Broad revivial in 2001) as well as the community theatre stage for close to fifty years. Recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer