These are just a sampling of some of the “comments about crazy” made by the antagonistic anti-hero Randal Patrick McMurphy in one of the most famous books/films/plays about mental illness, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which opens at Jefferson Performing Arts Center on January 29, 2021.

The recent Zoom conversation conducted by Jefferson Performing Arts Society executive director Todd Simmons with the cast of this show kept returning to the questions: What is crazy? Who is truly crazy?  Who decides?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest forces viewers to consider all of these things regarding both modern and outdated perceptions of mental illness. By watching the various complicated characters and their own struggles, learning who in the institution is there voluntarily and who has been committed against his will, and witnessing the therapeutic methods of the now infamous  Nurse Ratched, audience members will be challenged to consider what is “right” and “wrong” about the treatment of mental illness—then and now.

On a positive note, the award-winning 1975 film version of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel of the same name may have helped improve conditions at mental institutions, which began around the time this film was released:

In 1975, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in favor of the Mental Patient's Liberation Front in Rogers v. Okin, establishing the right of a patient to refuse treatment. Later reforms included the Mental Health Parity Act, which required health insurers to give mental health patients equal coverage.

Other factors included scandals. A 1972 television broadcast exposed the abuse and neglect of 5,000 patients at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York. The Rosenhan's experiment in 1973 caused several psychiatric hospitals to fail to notice fake patients who showed no symptoms once they were institutionalized. The pitfalls of institutionalization were dramatized in an award-winning 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

In 1955, for every 100,000 US citizens there were 340 psychiatric hospital beds. In 2005 that number had diminished to 17 per 100,000.

–Wikipedia, Deinstitutionalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation

While progress has been made, upon viewing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, you might realize that not much has changed, either.  The reality is that society continues to struggle with the “best” ways to treat, support, protect, and care for those with mental disorders.  We hope this show can open hearts and minds so that together we can work towards more empathy and understanding of these disenfranchised souls that are, sadly, still called “crazy”.