The audience is locked up side by side with the loonies in After Hours Theatre Company’s über-immersive One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and if Dale Wasserman’s stage adaptation of Ken Kessey’s novel isn’t ideally served by this you-are-there approach or the production’s younger-than-written crazies, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest The Experience is a theatrical adventure you won’t want to miss.

Movie buffs will recall director Miloš Forman’s 1975 adaptation of Kesey’s ‘62 novel, one of only five films in Academy Award history to will The Big 5, including Best Actor/Actress victories for Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher as freshly admitted mental patient Randle McMurphy and the psycho ward’s by-the-book head honcha Nurse Ratched.

 It wasn’t insanity that got McMurphy (Mick Torres) institutionalized, but a simple if misguided desire to avoid hard labor for the latest in a series of petty and not so petty crimes committed over his thirty-five years.

Now, unfortunately, McMurph must suffer the consequences of being locked in alongside virginal mama’s boy Billy (Frank Gullihur), apparent closet case Dale Harding (Curtis Scott), lily-livered Cheswick (Jonny Perl), hallucination-prone Martini (Harrison Meloeny), introverted loner Scanlon (Paul Stanko), lobotomized Ruckly (Al Rahn), and schizophrenic Native American chief Bromden (Eduardo Fernandez-Baumann), all of the above under the not so tender, not so loving care of Nurse Ratched (Courtney Lloyd) and the well-meaning but ineffectual Dr. Spivey (swing Alex Weber).

As the free-wheeling McMurphy finds himself increasingly at odds with the manipulative Nurse Ratched, the scene is set for major combat, with neither opponent likely to surrender anytime soon.

 In After Hours Theatre Company’s most ambitious production to date, lead producer/artistic director Graham Wetterhahn and an extraordinary design team have converted an empty Burbank warehouse into the day room of a state mental hospital somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, one into which audience members are allowed entrance after having been given names, maladies, wristbands, and patient uniforms to wear over their street clothing and then assigned scavenger-hunt-style tasks to accomplish during the hour or so* before the play’s opening scene, assignments that have ticket-holders exploring scenic designer Victoria Tam’s minutely-rendered nurses station, closets, storerooms, and more.

 While audience members electing “chronic patient” status will find themselves observing the action from a more traditional distance, “acute patients” get assigned seating alongside actors at tables and chairs within the playing area, a vantage point that offers both rewards and drawbacks.

On the plus side, acute patients get to experience One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as background players, and how often does going to the theater mean having this much fun?

On the minus side, fun isn’t necessarily an emotion one wants to be feeling when viewing Cuckoo’s Nest, and the additional suspension of disbelief required by seeing audience members as patients can prove distracting.

 Fortunately, in addition to making imaginative use of the playing area throughout, director Jonathan Muñoz-Proulx has elicited top-notch performances from lead and featured players, with particular praise due Torres’s dynamic, sexy, free-wheeling McMurphy and Lloyd’s cold-as-ice, passive-aggressive monster of a Nurse Ratched in performances entirely their own and not those of Jack and Louise.

 Gulliher (a dead ringer for the movie’s Oscar-nominated Brad Dourif) makes for a heartbreakingly vulnerable Billy, Fernandez-Baumann does towering work as Chief Bromden, and Meloeny, Rahn, Scott, and Stanko deserve their own individual kudos for giving each of their characters his own distinctive idiosyncrasies.

 Still, something is lost by having characters written to be carrying decades upon decades of mental illness baggage played by actors who appear no older than their late 20s.

Swing Weber’s youth does work in the case of his particularly fine Dr. Spivey, turning the well-intentioned doctor into no match for the more seasoned Nurse Ratched.

Dominic Bournés, Martin Head, and John Sweet do terrific work as aides Williams, Turkle, and Flinn, while Giselle Gilbert and swing Anica Petrovic are double delights, the former as Nurse Flinn and (swinging in at the performance reviewed) as sexy late-night visitor Candy Starr, the latter as Candy’s saucy friend Sandra. (Swing Everjohn Feliciano also participated in the performance reviewed.)

 Cuckoo’s Nest’s extraordinary production design is completed by Andrew Schmedake’s stunning lighting, Austin Quan’s dramatic sound design, Shen Heckel’s multitude of period properties, Lena Sand’s mental ward-ready costumes, Sheiva Khalily’s projections, and Sara Beil’s immersive design.

Choreographer Jen Oundjian backs each Chief Bromden’s scene-linking stream-of-consciousness monologs with its own distinctive, surreal “dance” and Edgar Landa choreographs some realistic stage combat to boot.

Oh, and lest I forget, “prescription” cocktails (designed by Spirit Guides) may be filled at the bar before the show and during intermission.

 One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is produced by KJ Knies, Heckel, Torres, and Isabella Petrini. Heckel is production manager. Summer Grubaugh is stage manager and Kate Harrow is technical director.

While immersive staging may not be the ideal way to experience One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest for maximum dramatic effect, it makes After Hours Theatre Company’s one-of-a-kind production an absolute must see. This is Los Angeles theater at its most innovative and exciting.

SIX01 Studio, 630 S. Flower Street, Burbank.
www.CUCKOOSNESTLA.com

–Steven Stanley
May 31, 2018
Photos: KJ Knies

*Memo from The Hospital Staff to prospective patients:

On behalf of the staff here at the ward, we are very excited to welcome you to your new home this evening. In order to receive the most beneficial care, we recommend arriving one hour before curtain.

Before your admission into the ward tonight, we have a few rules to keep in order:

• Please come in clothing which allows movement (dresses and skirts are discouraged).
• We encourage leaving your bags, purses, and coats in your car or at home.
• Stealing any items from the ward is strictly forbidden and will call for your immediate removal.
• Please do not touch or harm any patients or personnel.
• Always be respectful of your fellow patients.
• Please do not move furniture without permission.
• Cash gambling is not tolerated in our ward.

There is plenty of free street parking situated around the ward, but please do plan accordingly.

Thank you for your compliance. We look forward to treating you.

Tags: After Hours Theatre Company, Dale Wasserman, Ken Kesey, Los Angeles Theater Review