Review: MISERY at Springer Opera House

A critically injured novelist. His “number one fan” coming to his aid. At first, she is a godsend. But when fandom turns into obsession, events take a darker turn. The play may be called Misery, but at the Springer Opera House, the show is a pleasure.

Elliot Young stars as Paul Sheldon, the injured writer at the center of the play. Young gives a gripping, multilayered performance. At times, Paul begs, bargains, and humors Annie in order to buy time or to calm her down, which broughy variety to the play. Also notable were Young’s cries of agony, which are so convincing that I sometimes felt bad that I was watching, instead of coming to Paul’s aid. It is an engrossing portrayal, and Young is more than capable of shouldering such a demanding role.

Meagan Cascone plays Annie Wilkes, Paul’s obsessive fan. In Cascone’s portrayal of Annie shows symptoms of mental instability, including delusional beliefs, erratic mood swings, and inappropriate emotional responses. Cascone wisely prevents Annie from being a caricature, though. The plausibility of the character makes the play more terrifying.

However, Cascone seems too young for the role. Misery takes place in 1987, and Annie needs to be old enough to watch serials in a movie theater. That would make her at least in her 40s. This is not a major distraction, to enjoying the play, though.

Rounding out the cast is Andy Brown as Buster, the local sheriff looking for Paul. Brown gives his character a folksy charm, and he functions well as the audience’s only visible link to the outside world.

Director Keith McCoy is well suited for William Goldman’s cinematic script. The subtle, unflashy directorial style for Misery keeps a laser-focus on the events disturbing events unfolding on stage. McCoy is skilled at managing the shifts in the mood that often occur when one character acquiesces to the other. Under McCoy’s watch, Misery is a Hitchcockian psychological thriller that gradually ramps up the tension for two full hours.

The most notable technical achievement in Misery is scenic designer Gage Williams’s set for Annie’s house. The 1950s refrigerator, painfully out-of-date floral wallpaper, and crumbling wall plaster give the play an unsettling environment and also convey Annie’s poverty. The frame of the house is also a useful structure for capturing the mood lighting (designed by Katie Underwood) that emphasizes key moments of the play. The house has an odd layout, though; in a larger proscenium theater, the two parts of the house could be placed side-by-side. In the McClure Theatre, Paul’s bedroom is downstage, and the kitchen and entryway are upstage on a raised platform, and the two are connected by a hidden hallway and presumably a ramp. It makes the most sense to imagine the house as a split-level house, perhaps with Paul’s room as an addition built long ago.

I feel mixed about Alex Allison’s costume design. Paul’s costume was versatile, and the addition of removal of different layers or pieces could effectively show the passage of time. Annie’s costume, though, seemed like something a middle-class suburban housewife would wear in 1997—not a poverty-stricken rural woman in 1987. The long denim dresses on top of a sweater seemed out of place. (And a decade is sometimes an eternity in women’s fashion.)

Stephen King wrote the novel that serves as the foundation for Misery, and it makes sense that a famous writer would be scared of an obsessive fan. Misery is not the typical Halloween season offering from a theatre company, but it fits well with the spooky season. The twists and turns in the story keep the audience guessing, and the talented artists at the Springer Opera House have brought this disturbing story to life in a worthwhile production. 

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