[NEohioPAL] Review of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" at Blank Canvas Theatre

Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL neohiopal at lists.neohiopal.org
Mon Jul 28 10:15:06 PDT 2014


Blank Canvas' 'Cuckoo's Nest' is perched on a low-laying branch

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

Blank Canvas Theatre - Cleveland's primary provider of cultist comedies and spectacularly bizarre musicals - also grounds its professional reputation in productions of modern classics.  Its current rendition of Dale Wasserman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," directed and designed by Patrick Ciamacco, does little to bolster that reputation. 

 

In "Cuckoo's Nest," pathological trouble-maker Randle P. McMurphy (Daniel McElhaney) lands himself in a mental ward and sets his sights on engaging in all-out warfare with the coldly manipulative Nurse Ratched (Anne McEvoy).  The battleground is the day room of the asylum - a linoleum-lined meeting place rendered in soul-sucking tones of institutional green.  The cause is the liberation of his fellow mental patients from the psychological ties that bind them and establishing supremacy over authority.

 

Both McElhaney and McEvoy develop interesting characters but, as the central agents of the dynamic tension that drives this play, they are not nearly interesting or dynamic enough.  

 

Undermining their efforts is the sluggish pace with which this production progresses. 

 

Contributing causes include frequently delayed lighting cues, scenes starting with flatly delivered pre-recorded interior monologues by inert inmate Chief Bromden (Aaron Patterson), and too many missed opportunities to instill much needed energy into this production.  Depicting the prostitutes (Monica Zach and Kim Woodworth) that McMurphy sneaks into the asylum as little more than drunken choir girls, for example, creates activity but little action.   

 

Consequently, many of the play's dramatic moments simply lack drama.  But not all, thanks to a very talented supporting cast.   

 

John Polk, as patient Dale Harding, and Perren Hedderson, as patient Billy Babbit, are given marvelously written moments of mental melt-down that are delivered brilliantly.  The play's many comedic and poignant moments that spring from them and other actors playing mental patients - which include Matthew Lenczewski, as Ruckly; Chris Ross, as Cheswick; and Len Lieber, as Scanlon - help keep this flawed production afloat. 

 

WHAT:           "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" 
WHERE:        Blank Canvas Theatre at 78th Street Studios in Cleveland

WHEN:           Through August 2

TICKETS:      $15, call 440-941-0458 or visit www.blankcanvastheatre.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20140728/58f78780/attachment.htm>


More information about the NEohioPAL mailing list