‘Cuckoo Nest’ by Maskers captivating

BELFAST – “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is the perfect play to show off the Maskers’ renovated theater. The intimacy of the 3/4-round stage puts theatergoers inside the mental hospital where the story takes place. In an odd way, the new configuration makes them inmates, too.

This is the first show produced by the 13-year-old company since it shut down four months ago to remove its proscenium arch stage and old church pews. The new stage is on the floor and the seats rise above it – two rows in front, three to stage right and six to stage left. The first row of chairs actually sits on the stage area.

Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel and the 1975 Academy Award-winning film based on it are familiar to most Americans. Dale Wassermann’s play, adapted from the novel and first performed in the late 1960s, is less well known. The playwright is known for his scripts about men like Kesey’s hero Randle Patrick McMurphy who tilt at windmills. Wassermann also wrote the book for the musical “Man of La Mancha” that tells the story of Don Quixote.

McMurphy, played by Greg Marsanskis in the Maskers’ production, chooses to go to a mental ward rather than a prison cell. There, Nurse Ratched proves a formidable warden, intent on thwarting McMurphy’s crusade to bring humanity to the insanity inside the hospital. She is portrayed by Diane Coller Wilson, a founding member of the Maskers.

Marsanskis bears an uncanny resemblance to Kesey. His McMurphy is a man driven by his instincts rather than his intellect. His personality is so big, the hospital isn’t large enough to hold him. He bonds with the other men on the ward not because they are fellow “prisoners,” but because they are fellow human beings.

It takes a few minutes for the audience to adjust to any actor who is not Jack Nicholson in this role. Marsanskis, however, makes the part his own and creates a McMurphy truer to the man in Kesey’s novel than the one on film. The actor’s energy rises from the stage and laps at theatergoers’ ankles like a swiftly rising tide. His rage pins them in their seats and they ride the emotional wave of the play’s final 15 minutes clinging to their chairs as if they were lifeboats.

Wilson plays Ratched, the rock this sea called McMurphy can wash over and around, but does not wear down. She captures the control freak inside the nurse and finds the efficient, emasculating manipulator. The actress, however, fails to foreshadow Ratched’s humanity, so that her final farewell to McMurphy comes off as one last attempt at manipulation rather than an unguarded moment of tenderness.

William Nelson, Jason Cushing, Peter Paton, Charlie Hunter, Scott A. Snively and Bob Conway play McMurphy’s fellow inmates. On the whole, their performances are on a par with Marsanskis’, but with his ticks and twitches, Snively is hypnotic and his 20 years in professional theater show. He does not upstage his fellow actors, but brings a dignity to Anthony Martini even when he is snatching imaginary bugs from the air.

Bob Schroff plays Chief Bromden with quiet dignity. He brings a childlike wonder to the role and his deep voice fills the small theater like a strong, hopeful wind.

In the small part of Aide Warren, Ben Matthews stands out. The young actor creates a cruel, heartless version of Nurse Ratched that at times is more frightening than the original.

Director Tobin Malone gets surprisingly even performances out of her actors, most of whom are amateurs. As the troupe’s new artistic director, Malone’s first effort is bold and bodes well for the rest of the season. She appears to be leading the Maskers back to the future envisioned by co-founder and first artistic director Basil Burwell.

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” will be performed Thursday to Sunday through April 1. For more information, call 338-9668.