One Flew West: After Hours’ Hybrid ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ (The NoPro Review)
The American classic enters the immersive era in this Burbank production
Disclosure: One Over the Cuckoo’s Nest co-producer KJ Knies is a contributor to No Proscenium. He has not had editorial input, nor has he been privy to the contents of this review before publication.
Somehow, despite seeming over-saturation, “immersive” remains a hot buzzword.
Once you’re initiated into the immersive mysteries you can’t help but see the word everywhere, advertising anything from books to spiritual retreats. It’s enough to make one suspicious whenever the word is deployed: especially when that word is attached to a piece of traditional proscenium theatre, as is the case with After Hours Theatre Company’s production of the play adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
There’s a trend in both New York and London to find a way to tap into the immersive renaissance while still holding on to the traditional audience size and general shape of a play. We’ve also been lucky enough here in LA to see innovative work like Caught, which took a work that cried out to have the fourth wall shattered and created a multi-layered puzzle box from the script.
After Hours’ Burbank-based production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest aims somewhere between those two points on the spectrum: looking to inject some of the immediacy that immersive staging and production values have to offer, while still teeing up a stalwart of the American canon.
Many of you may have encountered the story in high school or college, but for those who somehow skipped that week, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells the tale of Randle Patrick McMurphy (a breezy Mick Torres), a con man who gets himself sent to a psychiatric hospital because he figures it will be better than getting shipped off to state prison. While there he gets locked into a battle of wills with Nurse Ratched (Courtney Lloyd), whose domineering ways make her the sole source of authority on the ward.
The story is best known as the 1975 Academy Award winning film that cemented Jack Nicholson’s career, but the play dates back to more than a decade previous, and the story it is based on a bit before that. Cuckoo’s Nest is very much a product of its time, albeit one with enough hooks to make for trenchant social commentary in just about any era. (More on that in a moment.)
One of the more interesting things about the story is its inherent tone. McMurphy is a pretty freewheeling character whose attitude dictates the way that much of the action unfolds. As much as the plot wants us to believe that McMurphy doesn’t belong amongst the mentally ill, his actions create enough of an uncertainty that ambiguity lingers.
To this tinderbox of a play, the After Hours company adds an interactive prologue in a site-adaptive staging which puts patrons in the rec room of the Oregon State Hospital mental ward.
Taken as a piece, the set (a jaw dropper by Victoria Tam) and immersive design (an agile accent by Sara Beil) are bravura work. Indeed, all the design work on this prodcution is incredible, easily the best I’ve seen in an age, and all the more exciting for being a 360 set.
The pre-show invites audience members to explore that incredible set and interact with members of the cast who have put out games. Those games are little more than ruses which lead into a collection of clues, which then send guests scurrying about the space and pillaging off-stage spaces which in other productions wouldn’t be designed at all. The freewheeling spirit matches up with the highs of McMurphy’s reign even if “Mac” himself is necessarily missing.
There’s also a pharmacy (bar) when guests can pick up their prescriptions (drinks). All this action takes place while the guests are adorned in either hospital gowns for the eventual bench sitters or light blue button-up shirts and scrub-like pants to match the costumes of the actors playing mental patients. The later is reserved for the patrons destined to sit on the stage itself.
In terms of execution, it’s all gleefully manic, with only the laborious process of getting everyone attired and into the space putting a damper on things, at least, for those who choose to participate. Patrons just there to see a play might find the long load-in of the audience tedious. The whole thing tacks on enough time to the show that I found my energy levels dipping during the last twenty minutes of the play itself.
From a story perspective, the prologue acts as a kind of “dumb show” in the Shakespearean sense: laying out the major theme of the play before the play itself takes place: it’s all fun and games, until someone gets hurt.
For those of us who know the story, McMurphy’s fun and games function as a mask for both the man and his fate, and it’s here where the path that After Hours takes towards incorporating immersive elements runs into a bit of trouble. If you know where the story is going, and many will, the thought of playfully running around the set will likely feel odd. The execution is above reproach — indeed, I’m very excited to see what else this design team can do — but it’s not entirely clear that the play itself can handle the additional weight.
The pre-show does, however, give context to a late-in-the-show moment of interaction that would otherwise feel completely tacked on—a moment that could in fact be pushed a little further to bring the point home.
Which brings us to the question of the the point of the show.
Cuckoo’s Nest has aged in a peculiar way. By some standards, the raw sexism of the piece could be seen as disqualifying for modern audiences. Or that element can be seen as one layer in a complex clash of themes that pit the individual versus authority versus community. (Guess where I stand; hint: complexity.) So much of the heart of the story is carried within the relationship between McMurphy and Chief Bromden, who stands as both a mythic figure — the dispossessed Native American — and very much a flesh and blood man, especially as played by Eduardo Fernandez-Baumann who gives this production its soul.
While director Jonathan Muñoz-Proulx delivers a solid rendering of the story, the production comes up short in terms of a point of view on that tale. As someone who has long admired the complexities of Kesey’s original story, I was ready for a production that was in dialogue as much with the time it was being produced as the time it was set. Which isn’t to say that the production isn’t good, in fact it’s liable to be the best version of the play I’ll ever get to see. Cuckoo’s Nest doesn’t get brought out of retirement all that often, and it almost certainly hasn’t been approached quite like this.
After Hours’ production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest plays through July 1st at Six01 Studio, 630 South Flower Street in Burbank. Tickets are $35 — $50 dollars.
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