Review: MISERY at The Weekend Theater Will Make You Their Biggest Fan

Broadway World is now the Weekend Theater's biggest fan with their most recent production of MISERY, which still has two more weekends left, Friday, Oct. 28-30, and again Nov. 4-6. Laugh. Cry. Think. Act. Is the Weekend Theater's motto, but for this show, they need to add Creep. Based off the novel by Stephen King and Directed by Amie White, this show will creep you out, especially if you are in a position to have admirers-like writers-which I am.

Though the book and movie has been around for a while, this play is fairly new to the community theatre world, and I was excited to be able to see it. Set outside of Silver Creek, Colorado, during the winter, writer Paul Sheldon (Paul Bowling) has had a car wreck and is rescued by his biggest fan Annie Wilkes (Donna Singleton), who happens to be a nurse. Misery is her all-time favorite character and is obsessed with what happens next for her heroine. So, when Paul tells her there was a new book coming out, Annie couldn't wait to get her hands on it. Paul did mention he wrote a new book and had the manuscript in his briefcase. He allowed Annie to read it, and she was very disappointed, since it was completely different than the Misery books and had a lot of profanity. She was so furious that she made Paul drink soapy water with his pain pill.

When the new Misery book came out, Annie was thrilled until she got to the end where Misery dies. Her craziness really started coming out then. She decides Paul needs to write her back to life and goes and buys all the supplies for him to get it going. The townspeople talk about Annie, and Buster (Bobby Simpson) comes out to question her about her favorite author. She is able to send Buster away and keeps at Paul until he is almost finished with his book. When she realizes he is getting better and he will not want to stay with her, she decides to do something about it. What? Well, if you are a fan, you probably already know. If not, go see the show. I closed my eyes, even though I was fairly certain that the actor wasn't really going to get hurt.....but just in case.....I didn't watch!

Annie Wilkes gets crazier and crazier throughout the play. She seems harmless enough in the beginning, but she quickly escalates. Singleton was very convincing as a deranged psychopath. I believed in her madness and was a little unnerved every time she came off the stage. At the end when she was supposed to be dead and Paul was giving his acceptance speech, I jumped a little when she appeared off stage pretty close to where I was sitting and said she was never going to leave him. Great...I mean really. She was THAT disturbing!

Paul as Paul was very reactive to his captor. At first, he was appreciative of her medical expertise, but he quickly found out that she was a bit nuts, and responded accordingly, mostly behind her back. His physical pain was believable, as well as his annoyance with his situation. He was convincing as someone who couldn't get around very well, and he was true to his word when he said he wasn't very attentive to people around him when he was in writing mode. Even with that attitude, I couldn't help but root for his survival.

Though the show was definitely about the two leads, Simpson as Buster gave us hope that Paul would survive. His inquisitiveness was encouraging, and when he found Paul, I cheered, until Annie shot him in the back and said it's always something...which made me laugh. In fact, this may be the first shooting in which I have laughed out loud.

Don't miss your chance to see one of the first showings of this Stephen King classic. For more information and tickets, visit their website at weekendtheater.org.

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