Players rise admirably to tough challenge
Last updated 12:53, Thursday, 15 May 2008
ONE Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was billed as one of the toughest challenges yet by Rosehill Players.
But they rose to the challenge with hard work and dedication, achieving a notable success.
The play, based in an American mental hospital, required the actors to pull out all the stops and that’s precisely what they did with strong performances from Ben Ramsbottom, Willie Dodd, Paul McCumiskey and others. Accents were spot on.
Taking the role of RP McMurphy was stalwart Roger Wilson who turned in a polished performance. He’d pitched it just right, leaving the audience wondering whether he was a sane man in a mad world or perhaps a touch psychotic.
Marian Finn as Nurse Ratched also walked that fine line between caring nurse and a control freak who might have been the real cuckoo in this nest of mentally ill patients.
It’s a play that raises questions over how sanity is defined – and who defines it.
Even the ‘obviously’ brain-dead Chief Bromden (with a sterling debut performance by Dave Corrigan) eventually had you wondering if he was the one with the clearest insight into what was going on.
A simple but striking set helped create the right atmosphere and this was a production obviously well rehearsed.
Director David Simpson ran a tight ship and brought out the best of all on stage. Despite the constraints of Rosehill, the movement was free-flowing and never looked uncomfortable.
It was fast-moving which is usually a good thing but perhaps some tension and drama was lost with some of the play’s more powerful lines being dispensed with too quickly.
But that’s a minor criticism of a top-notch show of which all involved can be rightly proud. This was a show which will be talked about for a long time to come.
Alan Cleaver
