Arriving just in time for the spooky season, Spencer Theatre Company’s production of Misery, directed by John Sivak, delivers a taut, 105-minute psychological thriller without an intermission. It is adapted for the stage by William Goldman, who also penned the screenplay for the award-winning film based on Stephen King’s novel. The play keeps much of the iconic movie dialogue intact. For longtime fans, this three-layered homage offers an entertaining, nostalgia-laced return to that horrifying little cabin in the woods.
Nostalgia aside, this isn’t a show for the faint of heart or younger audiences. There are some potentially triggering themes of kidnapping, abuse, restraint and scenes of extreme physical suffering and bloodshed.
“This is a show where you don’t take a breath the entire time; it’s a nonstop and intense psychological cat-and-mouse game,” Sivak said.
For those who somehow avoided catching Misery on basic cable marathons every October in the 90s, the quick CliffsNotes synopsis: Paul Sheldon is a best-selling author who built his fame on a popular romance heroine named Misery Chastain. After crashing his car in a Colorado blizzard, Sheldon awakens to find himself trapped in the remote home of his deranged, “No. 1 fan,” Annie Wilkes.
While the stage script moves at a brisk clip and preserves the film’s juiciest beats, it noticeably omits Wilkes’ important backstory – the disturbing string of patient deaths from her former career as a nurse. Without this serial murder past, Wilke’s character and Sheldon’s predicament feels like far more of an euphemism for a writer’s personal demons. The show becomes a claustrophobic portrait of a narcissistic writer pushed to mental instability by emotional and physical pain, pills, solitude and the collision between his artistic hubris and the expectations of his reading audience.
Staged almost entirely within the confines of a single room, the production hinges on the volatile, escalating and emotionally fractured interactions between Wilkes and Sheldon. There are only three people in the cast, and one barely clocks five minutes of stage time: Buster, the ill-fated local sheriff, played deftly by Jim Dahlquist.
Dahlquist cheekily refers to his role as the show’s “commercial breaks,” and he certainly embraces the old adage that there are no small parts – even sarcastically hollering across the theater during cast interviews, “I want this whole article to be about me!” Apologies, but this is where the spotlight ends.
Wilkes is played shrewdly by Justine Moser, who brings an intimidating presence to the stage, portraying Annie like a stern, smirking schoolmarm prone to explosive unraveling.
“There was a lot in the book that stood out to me – how she’s a solid, immovable idol with hollow eyes. I used that description to help ground the character,” Moser explained.
There is no saccharine sweetness in her portrayal; instead, her delivery lands like an evil-minded Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory – stilted, detached and utterly dominating. It is a grueling, relentless role with virtually zero downtime and Moser encapsulates both the physical menace and allegorical hold over the captive author.
Hankins is thoroughly convincing as an unraveling, out-of-his-mind Paul Sheldon. Hankins commits fully to the visceral horror of the role; his agonizing cries, labored breathing and whimpers become the show’s soundtrack of torment. They’re often heard alongside or over Wilkes’s spoken lines to keep the room perpetually on edge. The audience never doubts that this man is trapped in his own private hell.
Hankins nimbly navigates Stockholm syndrome, an uneasy, begrudging respect for his captor and a simmering loathing directed equally at Wilkes and his own weaknesses. His performance accurately captures a broken man.
Hankins astutely observes, “Paul Sheldon is a great character if you want to learn why ego is the literal and figurative death of art.”
Misery is a great show to jump-start your Halloween with dark thrills. It turns a classic hostage story into an uncomfortably close look at pride, desperation and creative compromise. In the end, this one leaves you feeling like sometimes the scariest thing in the room isn’t the sledgehammer, but the mirror.
Misery continues its run at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in the Peggy Ryder Theatre Oct. 9-11 and 16-18. Friday and Saturday performances start at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees begin at 3 p.m. Tickets are available by calling 217-523-2787 or visiting HCFTA.org
