CRITIC’S PICK:
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s season-opening Misery explores the depths of human depravity and delivers a delightfully disturbing production that chills and entertains.
It opens to total darkness; the only sounds are from the action that occurs offstage, where the audience hears the commotion of what appears to be a horrific car crash.
When the lights come up on a seemingly calm yellow bedroom, we are introduced to famed romance novelist Paul Sheldon, the victim of the earlier crash. His strange caretaker is a sunny — if a little manic — nurse named Annie Wilkes, Paul’s “number one fan.” Paul is late for his return to New York to do a press tour for his latest novel, a Regency romance that details the life of main character Misery Chastain. But now, bruised, broken and confined to bed, Paul comes to depend upon — and ultimately fear — his increasingly disturbed caretaker-turned-captor.
Perhaps one of Stephen King’s most famous and terrifying novels, Misery is an exploration of sanity, isolation and obsession. But at its core, Misery is a chilling psychological thriller, and the Playhouse’s stage adaptation, written by William Goldman and directed by Blake Robison, brings on the shivers.
Set in a small house in an isolated Colorado town, Paul sets off on a long road to recovery. Bedridden from two broken legs and nearly immobilized by a dislocated shoulder, Paul confides in his caretaker, even sharing with her a new manuscript, freshly completed after his three-month stay in a nearby lodge. But companionship turns to nightmarish enmity as Paul soon learns that Annie never intends to let him recover and leave.
Barbara Chisholm delivers an eerily captivating and delightfully unhinged performance as Annie. She is so adept at switching from manic happiness to calm fury that the audience has trouble truly characterizing and hating her. Though Annie is psychopathic and violent, Chisholm shifts easily and naturally on a dime, luring the audience into a Stockholm syndrome-like state. We laugh with her, relax when she’s happy and get tense when she sours. We mimic her moods out of fear for Paul and learn her triggers with each ironic laugh she produces.
David Whalen’s strong, witty and sincere performance as Paul is part of what allows the tension to slowly build and snake out into the audience. Whalen’s commitment to Paul’s immobility, his pain and eventual panic, are essential to that connection. Whalen adds a necessary grit to the maniacal production that keeps it centered and real.
Part of what makes Misery so chilling is in the intricacy of the set, designed by Paul Shortt. The stage revolves to reveal three different rooms within the isolated home: Paul’s bedroom, Annie’s living room and Annie’s kitchen. Shortt’s revolving set moves silently and seamlessly and the actors navigate it mid-rotation with a delicate ease.
Adding to the eerie sense of isolation are the trees that creep down from above, concluding at the roof of Annie’s house, and lending a sense of claustrophobia to the production. They wrap themselves around the top of the set, much in the way Annie wraps herself around Paul, constricting him bit by bit.
The interior of the house itself mirrors Annie; it is a mixture of outdated sensibilities and preciseness to its careful organization, which hides the monster within. For Annie, there is a place for everything and everything is in its place, which make navigating the strange home both easy and treacherous for Paul. This uncertainty is part of what creates a delightful tension, as audience members lean on the edges of their seats, both frightened and thrilled.
Misery is violent, to say the least, both emotionally and physically. And the effects and fight choreography, coordinated by Rick Sordelet and Christian Kelly-Sordelet, add in an extra cringe factor that helps send shivers down the audience’s spine (despite a small opening-night technical flub involving a sledgehammer).
There is little lost in translation from novel to stage or screen to stage, aside from a less intensely real depiction of torturous violence. Though Misery is a horrifying thriller, it still proves to be raucous fun, evoking both laughter and audible screams.
Misery runs through Sept. 29 at the Playhouse in the Park (962 Mount Adams Circle, Mount Adams). Tickets/more info. cincyplay.com
This article appears in Sep 5-12, 2018.
