..”One flew east, one flew west and one flew over the cuckoo’s nest”.
by Rose Rushe
Photo: Katie Dowling
READER, hasten tither for Torch Player’s terrific production of this modern classic by Dale Wasserman. At 69 O’Connell Street until Saturday 28, director Maurice O’Sullivan has pulled together an able, intuitive ensemble who deliver, deliver and deliver again in this tough play of Ken Kesey’s book.
It’s odd, how electric the writing and acting is. The best laughs, and there are many, are for lines rank with misogyny in this aerial view of life in the day room of a psychiatric institution. ‘Tis all about power play and the tools to exercise same in novelist Ken Kesey’s big riotous shout against The Machine. The stage version is slimmed down but powerful.
O’Sullivan makes full play with his pack of cards/ actors who shuffle the stage’s choreography so well. Mícheál Ó Dubhghaill brings first rate mania and timing to his central take on the bould Randle McMurphy but everybody is good.
Edel Heaney is a crispy silky whip as Nurse Ratched, all the worse for the little space she takes up but each of the men in their many fumbles, falls and fears are worth watching for their life story. There is the one they tell and the other story that is clear to you, McMurphy and it emerges, to everyone of the sentient locked up, locked in beings they are.
This quality of compassion is invoked wonderfully, and that of mercy proves to be unmerciful in its finality.
Technically, much is asked and fireworks are provided with rigour by the Doolan/ McGrath team. The set has four exits for much door-banging and flouty pouty carry-on and thrillingly, the grilled window is a conduit for everything from hookers to booze to opportunity – anything but freedom.
Book at www.limetreetheatre.ie or walk up to box office. 8pm show.
