I rarely find myself squirming in my seat at the theater, but it happened more than once during the opening of Misery at American Blues Theater Friday night, most memorably when unhinged nurse Annie Wilkes drove a sledgehammer into the ankles of her favorite novelist, Paul Sheldon. The sickening crunch of splintering bones–twice!–sent shivers down my spine even on the drive home.
The play, written for Broadway by William Goldman and based on the Stephen King novel later made into a film starring Kathy Bates and James Caan, is a visceral thrill ride once Sheldon discovers that the woman who rescued him from a car wreck and who has been nursing him back to health in her secluded Colorado home has more than a few screws loose.
Characters are stabbed, bludgeoned and put through physical hell in this intimate production tautly directed by Halena Kays. But it’s the mind games that create the most suspense as Sheldon attempts to outsmart Annie and make his escape, which he discovers won’t be nearly as easy as he thought it would be. I mean, there’s a credit for Violence Design, which is well earned by Nick Sandys.
Meanwhile, Annie, who tells Sheldon, “I’m your number one fan and there’s no number two,” has a psychotic break when she discovers the author has killed her favorite protagonist–Misery Chastain–in the latest series entry. She’s determined that it won’t be the last, as she orders Sheldon to resurrect the character in a new novel, which she’ll read chapter by chapter to make sure he isn’t behaving like a “dirty birdie.”
The complexity of the story becomes clear when we realize this author may need his crazy super fan almost as much as she needs him. It’s not a creative process anyone would want to emulate, but artistic inspiration sometimes comes from the strangest places.
In what is essentially a two-hander (there are brief scenes with a local lawman, played by Cisco Lopez, who’s a bit tentative in the role), the actors have to be locked in. Here, Steve Key and Wandachristine play each other like violins as they try to get the upper hand in a battle of wits and wills spanning this 90-minute one-act. Key delivers just the right amount of acerbic, big-city world weariness while Wandachristine convincingly essays her character’s descent from harmless eccentricity into malicious madness.
This is the perfect show for a spooky date night in October. Sometimes all tricks and no treats add up to a gruesome good time.
Misery runs through October 26 at American Blues Theater.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Michael Brosilow
