Cuckoo's Nest

Taos Metaphor?

June 02, 2005

“Cuckoo’s Nest”
The Actor’s Dream

By Andrew Flack

Six months ago, during a workout at the Taos Spa, my trainer, David Garver, told me about a dream he’d had. He was onstage at the TCA, having a riotous time playing hell-raising human dynamo R.P. McMurphy in a production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The best thing about the dream, he said, was that his old friend Robert Mirabal was playing Big Chief. “I’m going to call him,” David told me. “It’s the right time to do this play again, and I want to see what he’ll say.”

They had met in Taos in the fall of 1984, working on this very play. A 17-year-old Mirabal, walking back and forth to rehearsal from Taos Pueblo, had played the chief, while Garver, new in town from Illinois, acted Billy Bibbit, the troubled young man with a stutter. Twenty years later, both still deeply connected to this funny farm known as Taos, the men have remained close friends.

“He said he’ll do it,” Garver told me the next time I saw him at the spa. He asked if my partner, Barbara Duff, and I would be interested in producing, under the auspices of our new theatre company, Old Taos Players. That was an easy one. Work with David Garver and Robert Mirabal in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?” In a New York minute.

But Garver’s big ideas weren’t through. We would approach Ron Usherwood, one of our community’s most skilled and experienced directors, and a college friend of Garver’s, to direct. And would New York actress Barbara Duff, new to the Taos theatre scene, play Nurse Ratched? Duff said yes, Usherwood said yes, and we were off to the races. But there’s more.

Steve Parks came onboard. An audience favorite for more than 30 years, Parks has been involved in dozens of local productions and first worked with Garver and Usherwood in a 1983 production of “Equus.” Garver’s dream was taking shape.

Hollywood set designer and long-time Taos resident David Nichols joined the production, as did lighting designer Debra Buxton. But the greatest surprise was yet to come: the quality of the ensemble cast.

More than 50 actors showed up during two nights of auditions. The level of talent was mind-boggling for a town our size, and made Usherwood’s job—casting the 14 remaining roles—a complicated cinch.

“This is the most talented ensemble cast I’ve ever worked with in Taos,” Steve Parks tells me. “And Garver is an absolute treasure. We’re really so lucky to have him here in Taos.” I already knew that, since David played the title role in my caveman comedy, “Ooma’s Ladder,” last year.

Since “Cuckoo’s Nest” is an ensemble piece, set in a psychiatric ward with lots of characters onstage, it lends itself to people who know one another and work together well. Kristian Moore, Timothy Blevins, and Stephen Moser—three guys who just closed “American Buffalo”—are spot-on pros, joining Ken McNamara and Peter Miceli as the core group of loonies. Newcomers Greg Chase and Susan Nuss, both with big city chops, will open some eyes, as will the zany and multi-talented Les Lokey, Gregory Vose, and Damon Klassen. Even Ed Bell, who was in the 1984 production with Garver and Mirabal, has a role: this time as the tortured soul, Ruckley.

With little less than a month to go before opening night, we’re on our way to making Garver’s dream come true. We still don’t have a place to build the set; but, hey, it’s Taos, something will turn up. It always does in a dream.



Q&A with Robert Mirabal

Q: You did this play in Taos 20 years ago. What was it like then?
A: I was 17 and still in high school when I first played Big Chief. I remember running home at night after rehearsal from the TCA, back home to the Pueblo, because I didn’t have a ride; running in the darkness until somebody going to the Pueblo would pick me up.

Q: And now?
A: Playing him again is like an end of my very own saga. I am 38 years old and this play is like the bookends of my life up to this point; the end of youth, the beginning of middle age. Maybe in 20 years the “Chief” will manifest again.

Q: How did you get first get involved in theatre?
A: I had been a dancer with a group but that was my first real professional role as an actor in a community production. The seed was planted then in my life to become an actor and a performer. Those who have followed my career have seen that seed bloom and blossom in the winds of time and change.

Q: Why is theatre important to you?
A: I feel we all need a muse that we can laugh at and cry with. In all communities, big or small, there needs to be a release from ourselves. We need the storyteller to create the corridors that show us a new way and to bring closure. I am a simple storyteller and hopefully the messages will transcend into the reality of our lives. We must ask more questions when the story is finished.

Q: What does this play mean to you?
A: It’s a play about freedom, and that freedom doesn’t come easy for anyone. Like the Chief, will you escape into the void or sweep at life’s lily white comforts? The Chief chooses to run into the darkness of a rainy night as the winds howl and the people pull at him: “mend your life, mend your life.” The Chief will run until he sees the stars in the sky and the wild geese at dusk to show him the way.

Q: What directions are you now pursuing and how do they fit with this?
A: I’m currently working on two writing projects. There are always about 10 projects on the burner for me but my new novel is a priority right now. It has helped me to forge new understandings within my soul, and within my surroundings.