The Waxahachie High School drama department prepares for its rendition of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a play which explores life at a male mental institution.
Set in the 1960s, the story follows rebellious Randle McMurphy as he is admitted into the mental institution and clashes with head Nurse Ratched, who runs the place with harsh precision and shames patients into submission. McMurphy starts a rebellion against her with the other patients.
The play highlights how even in hopeless situations, inspiration and hope can still be found, head theater director Andy Reynolds explained.
“Hope comes from many different places, and even in the darkest places, there’s still a light that shines,” he said. “You can find inspiration from the most unexpected places.”
Throughout the show, the audience will try to figure out who flew over the cuckoo’s nest, and Reynolds said they’ll have their “aha” moment at the end and understand what the play is truly about.
“It’s disturbing at times,” Reynolds said. “It’s uplifting at times. It’s sad at times. It’s very funny at times, so it takes (us) on all these rides. Sometimes it’s hard to know who to root for in the story, and that’s why it’s so challenging for the actors.”
Before it was written as a play by Dale Wasserman in 1963, it was a novel written by Ken Kesey in 1962. The play was performed on Broadway in 1963 and has continued to be performed by regional theaters today. It later became a movie in 1975 with Jack Nicholson (McMurphy) and Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched). The movie was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five including best picture.
“We’re excited about putting the Waxahachie spin on a show that’s been done quite often,” Reynolds said.
In 2004, WHS competed with this exact play for UIL One-Act Play Competition. Reynolds said it was the first year they had ever made it to regionals, and he decided to do it again to challenge his students and add to the variety of this school year’s shows.
This time around, Reynolds implemented more artistic transitions and said he better understands the dynamic of silence in a moment. He is focusing on showing each emotion a character is feeling at any given moment, whether they are talking or not.
“That’s the number one as a director is that you have to make the audience believe that this the illusion of the first time – that this happening for the first time up there and that it’s real,” he said. “How do we make the audience feel the exact same thing that character is feeling? Because if they don’t, you’re not doing your job, and you’re not taking the audience on a journey. They’re just sitting there watching somebody do lines.”
Reynolds wants everyone to walk away from the play not being able to stop thinking about it because they experienced what the characters were feeling and were drawn into the story.
Because it follows patients in a mental institute, the play does have mature content including mental illnesses, suicide and people in a comatose state. Reynolds said the playwright allowed him to tone down the language and make it appropriate for WHS students while still maintaining the integrity of the play. He does recommend parental discretion for bringing elementary kids to the show.
Performed in the WHS Performing Arts Center, the show will have 7 p.m. shows from Oct. 20-22 and will end with a matinee show on Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. Admission is $5 for students and $7 for adults.
Judges from the Betty Lynn Buckley Awards will be judging Saturday’s performance. This is the first year WHS has entered this competition, and their winter musical “Crazy for You” will also be entered in the competition. The Buckley Awards is a scholarships awards program that celebrates high school performing arts. It has 16 award categories and is organized by Casa Mañana in Fort Worth.
To purchase tickets, visit http://whsdramadept.org/22-23-shows or buy them at the door.
