STAGE REVIEW : Audience Gets Too Involved in ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ Staging

The Huntington Beach Playhouse tries, almost literally, to pull us into “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The small theater has been turned into a mental hospital ward; audience seats mingle with those of patients, who wander about and are apt to take a breather by sitting down beside you.

The program comes disguised as an “admittance folder” for Oregon State Hospital; the cast box shares billing with a list of rules telling everybody how to behave. Please avoid “teasing or exciting to violence any of the patients” and don’t stray far from the burly staff escorts.

Director Gregory Cohen’s approach (based on David C. Roster’s concept) is interesting, and the crowd at a recent performance seemed intrigued, at least initially. But the idea is a mistake--not a fatal one, but still a mistake.

Dale Wasserman’s adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel is not so much about environment or atmosphere as it is about personalities and ideas, as embodied in the psychological battle between repressive Nurse Ratched and the anti-establishment loser, Randle P. McMurphy.

By nearly making us an accessory to the action, Cohen dilutes that struggle instead of steeping it. The confrontation should be seen from a distance, with the audience as outside observers able to develop judgments without feeling too involved. That’s why “Cuckoo” worked as a play and, especially, as a movie. Cohen lets the atmosphere of the ward press too close; it’s overwhelming at times.

On a more practical level, the seating’s organization presents a gamble for any ticket holder. It’s a challenge to see all that’s going on, particularly if you end up with a bad vantage point. Many people were craning (a few in the back even stood a couple of times) to take it all in.

The characterizations of Mitchell J. Mills as McMurphy and Patti Patronite as Nurse Ratched also weren’t as revealing as they could have been. Mills did have the requisite earthiness and an I-can-wrestle-the-devil! kind of street bravado, but there wasn’t enough leaderly charisma glaring through. He wins the other inmates over very quickly, and with this McMurphy, it seems too quickly.

Patronite resorted to mean stares and a few short, cutting declarations to communicate Nurse Ratched’s egomania, but what we needed was more information on why she’s so nasty and controlling at heart. To be sure, it’s the play’s most difficult role--how do you illuminate a character intent on remaining a cipher to everybody she comes in contact with?--but the actor must find ways to connect us to it.

The production’s best performances came from the cadre of inmates that Ratched systematically ruins and McMurphy influences. Ken Meyers gave an intelligent reading of the complicated, preening Harding, and Michael Gaffney’s Billy Bibbit was the lost sufferer he’s supposed to be.

‘ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST’

A Huntington Beach Playhouse production of Dale Wasserman’s drama based on Ken Kesey’s novel. Directed by Gregory Cohen. With Storme Gail Warn, Tom Pulcini, Greg Burks, George Hill, David Lamb, Jim Boeke, Brian L. Fowler, Jeff Bader, Patti Patronite, Heather Nielsen, Ken Meyers, Michael Gaffney, Mike Ungerleider, J. Brad Riker, David C. Robb, Gino England, Mitchell J. Mills, Wayne Mayberry, Mark MacDicken, Lisa Wayne and Penny Stiefel. Set by Keith Farr. Lighting by D. Erich Marse. Sound by Bill Bingham. Plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at 21141 Strathmoor Lane, Huntington Beach. Tickets $6 to $8. Information: (714) 832-1405.