Theatre Arts & Performance Studies

An Essay by Assistant Professor Leon Hilton: “Involuntary” One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the Age of Neurodivergence

"There are many colorful and often extravagantly misogynistic metaphors used to describe Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but as I watched Spectrum Theatre Ensemble’s (STE) recent production of the stage adaptation, one stood out in a way I’d never noticed before: “She’s a human radio.” Surveying the stage from an imposing metallic nurse’s station that resembled the central guard tower of a panopticon, Madison Weinhoffer as Ratched wore a white nurse uniform paired with a bizarre antenna-shaped headpiece that gave her the appearance of a steampunk praying mantis." 

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