Lakewood Playhouse gets a bit dark with its staging of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a theatrical adaptation by Dale Wasserman of the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey.



The novel isn’t all roses and mountaintop, and neither is the movie by the same name starring Jack Nicholson in the iconic role of Randle McMurphy, a devil may care troublemaker who thinks he made a good decision when he opted for time in an Oregon insane asylum rather than jail.



The theatrical adaptation, which has been revived on Broadway since it premiered in 1963, follows the book more than the movie. But seeing the movie provides a pretty good hint about the depth of the show.



For those who have not seen either, here is a quick primer.



McMurphy (played by Scott C. Brown) learns his clever wit and anti-authority behaviors have landed him in a mental hospital. He makes friends with the troubled souls the best he can but gets frustrated by their submissiveness to the head nurse, Ratched (Jenifer Rifenbery). She rules the ward with the authority of a Nazi commandant. The patients bend to her will with little more than a glance — that is until McMurphy arrives and rallies them to think for themselves.

Ratched beats down this act of McMurphy’s defiance with first a few hundred volts of electro shock therapy and then a full frontal lobotomy. He is rendered with a quality of life that can best be described as one step above a carrot. One of the patients then smothers him to death with a pillow not only save McMurphy from a life of gray nothingness but to keep the other patients from seeing his once spirited body reduced to a brainless slab. It is sort of how George kills Lenny in Of Mice and Men.



Brown, of course, was great as McMurphy as was Rifenbery as Ratched. The staging wasn’t particularly clever since the whole play was set in a hospital community room. But it was complete. The walls, gurney, nurse’s station, and sparse furniture were what I would envision a ward looking like at a nut house. Three doors onstage and offstage entrances courtesy of the theater-in-the-round made for an active stage as the drama played out.



What made this show work was the strength of the supporting cast. There were no stereotypical “crazy people”; each had their own ticks and nuances that showed the actors paid attention to their roles and developed their characters.



Blake R. York, for example, did a great job with his facial ticks as Charlie Cheswick. Of course, he has been on my radar since I saw him at Pierce College a few years ago when he played the title role in The Nerd. He is one hell of an actor because he develops those thousands of little things that make the characters rich and three dimensional. He could have easily gone over the top with his character, but he worked it instead of going the easy route. The same is true for the balance of the cast.



This is a show to watch and discuss; however, you should leave the children at home. There are some rough scenes and language.



[Lakewood Playhouse, through June 22, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, $11.50-$19.50, 5729 Lakewood Towne Center Blvd., Lakewood, 253.588. 0042]