"Cuckoo's Nest" to open

We’re heading into production week for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” at the Ashtabula Arts Center and, as usual, things are looking a little shaky.

Rehearsals for the show, ongoing since early December, have been on Sundays and Tuesdays only and have been sparsely attended. Most of the actors know their lines, though the principals are still having some problems. Hopefully, the magic of the theater will help everything come together for opening night, because the cast is very talented and the play is dynamite.

I play Chief Bromden, who is the narrator in the original book. While observing life in an insane asylum, he pretends to be deaf and dumb so he doesn’t have to interact with the staff and patients. He is forced from his shell by the arrival of a boisterous patient named McMurphy, who challenges the status quo at the institution with tragic results.

The artwork above is one of the promotional posters for the show. The other poster, apparently prepared by someone with no knowledge of the show, is of a cuckoo bird flying over a nest. The title of the book has little to do with the plot, and is taken from an old children’s rhyme:

Wire, briar, limber, lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew east, one flew west
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
O-U-T spells out
Goose swoops down and plucks you out!

The show runs Jan, 12, 13, 19-21 and 25- 27.