Almaden Resident

Education

Everything goes cuckoo in Pioneer play

By Eli Segall

Last January, Pioneer High School performed Noises Off, a quirky British comedy about a hopeless theater troupe.

This year's play takes performers in a new direction.

"I try to bring out the terror she represents," Pioneer senior Claire Hein says of her character, a sadistic nurse.

From Jan. 24 to 26, Pioneer will perform One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the famed novel turned Broadway play turned blockbuster film about an early 1960s mental institution. Set in the Pacific Northwest, the story involves rebellious patient Randle P. McMurphy, a Korean War hero and petty criminal, and his battles with the domineering Big Nurse Ratched, who runs the ward.

"It's not so much horror; it's more intellectual," says senior David Danning prior to a rehearsal at Pioneer's Performing Arts Center. "But all this is real. They actually gave you lobotomies [in the early 1960s], and they actually gave you electric shock treatments," says David, who plays one of the patients.

In its original version, the story is laced with profanity, racist undertones and graphic scenes of patients suffering the wrath--both physically and mentally--of Ratched and her henchmen, the ward's janitors.

Due to the nature of the story, director Steve Dini, the school's drama teacher, tweaked the script for Pioneer's family audience. Students in the play, many of whom read the novel for their junior year English honors class, says it was stripped of explicit language and racist inferences.

However, the overall content is still dark and heavy, they noted.

"We've PG-13'd it," says senior Andrew Terkelsen, who plays Chief Bromden, a delusional half-Indian who's had more than 200 electric shock treatments.

Written in 1962 by Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hit Broadway a year later starring Kirk Douglas, and again in 2001 with Gary Sinise. In 1975 Jack Nicholson starred in the film version, which won five Oscars and grossed more than $100 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, LLC, an online database of movie ticket sales.

Dini says he applied for the rights to perform Cuckoo last June and was quickly approved. Samuel French, Inc., a New York-based theater company, owns the publishing and licensing rights to the play.

Pioneer's 18-member cast, divided evenly between juniors and seniors, has rehearsed four days a week since mid-September, Dini says.

"I don't know of any other high school in the area that's done this play," says Rosy Bowring, Pioneer's set design and props manager and mother of Thomas, who plays McMurphy. "It's pretty challenging."

Still, the students have gotten into the characters, even though the roles are dark and bear no resemblance to their own personalities.

Senior Justin Sohn says Claire, Nurse Ratched in the play, is the perfect example.

"Claire laughs at everything in sight," says Justin Sohn, who plays one of the patients. "If we didn't know her in real life we'd actually be really scared right now."

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' will be performed at Pioneer High School's Performing Arts Center, 1290 Blossom Hill Road, San Jose, Jan. 24- 26, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and students with ID. For more information, call 408.978.8499.