FLY-BY-NIGHT

WASILLA — Mental health and how we treat the mentally infirm among us is one of those issues that doesn’t ever seem to go away.

And America seems, from time to time, to produce unsettling, timeless works of fiction and non-fiction that expose the shortcomings of the institutions set up for these unfortunate souls. In the late 1800s, it was journalist Nellie Bly who went undercover to expose abuses in that era’s mental institutions. In the 1960s, Ken Kesey took the issues head-on with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Kesey’s feelings about the stage and screen adaptations of his novel aside, the Valley now has its own chance to see the characters of Randle McMurphy and Nurse Ratched brought to life.

“It’s such a classically wonderfully great story,” said Larry Bottjen, artistic director for Valley Performing Arts who has taken on the role of asylum inmate Dale Harding for the play.

“It’s such a great story of heroism from a source where you would not suspect it.”

VPA’s executive director, Gary Forrester, agreed.

“It makes you think,” he said of the play. “The good thing about the play is you care about the characters, you care about what happens to them.”

For those unfamiliar with the story, it surrounds the arrival of McMurphy at an asylum where prior to his arrival the inmates were cowed by the story’s villain, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy arrives there as a means to avoid a prison sentence, but winds up with a lot more than he bargained for. McMurphy coaxes the inmates into opening up and slowly restores life to what had been a lifeless place. But that brings him into conflict with Ratched and he ends up paying a steep price.

“He does these marvelous things all through his activities there,” Bottjen said. “He brings these men out of their shells and helps them realize they are men and not mice.”

As artistic director, it’s Bottjen’s job to come up with a list of plays each season for VPA’s board of directors to select from. He said that he knew he was taking a risk in choosing a play like “Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“Most times we have trouble getting enough men to audition,” he said. And “Cuckoo’s Nest” has mostly male roles. “Ordinarily, I try to stay away from shows that are male-heavy because they’re difficult to cast well.”

But he credits director Kevin Cochran with taking on what both knew would be a tough show to produce. In addition to that casting difficulty, Bottjen said that dramas like “Cuckoo’s Nest” are generally harder to direct than comedies.

“He deserves real credit for taking on one of the more difficult kinds of shows,” Bottjen said.

With one weekend of performances already in the can, Bottjen said that from his vantage audiences seem to like it.

“We’ve had smatterings of standing ovations, and that’s kind of nice to see,” Bottjen said, though he was quick to note that those sorts of things are cyclical. Lately, standing ovations had been rare, but “in years past people, shoot, they’d stand up for anything.”

Forrester agreed with Bottjen’s cheery assessment of the play’s reception. Which is good, he said, because dramas tend to lack the broad appeal other shows enjoy.

“It’s a mature subject matter. You’re a little bit narrower focus with regards to the people that are going to come see the show,” Forrester said. “Typically, you’ll find that your musicals and your family shows and your comedies appeal to more people.”

The cast for “Cuckoo’s Nest” contains a good mix of rookies and veterans. Chief Bromden, one of the main inmate parts, and the main villain, Nurse Ratched, are both played by newcomers.

Bottjen said he was impressed with Bianca Purcell, who was able to take on the challenging role of Ratched.

“She’s got a real sadistic tendency inside her that she keeps tightly under wraps,” he said of Ratched. “Developing that nuance of character for our newcomer was a challenge for her, but she pulls it off nicely.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.