Misery Loves Company at The Dio

Guest Review by David Kiley, Editor-in-Chief, New Roads Media

Stephen King’s Misery, adapted for the stage by William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay, is a story that very much lives in Stephen King’s head and within his frustrations and restraints as a writer. But it also serves as an apt metaphor for the feelings of being trapped that so many people feel today.

Pop fiction writer Paul Sheldon (Dan Morrison) crashes his car in a snowstorm in a remote spot with a leather satchel with his latest novel. It took him three years to write, and its not a book within the genre of his “Misery” books about an 19th century heroine. Annie Wilkes (Sara B. Stevens) is his most devoted fan, who also seems to be bi-polar with psychotic and violent tendencies. She drags Sheldon from the crash and into her house where she looks after him as she lies about the roads and her phone being out from the storm.

Sheldon finds himself trapped, in horrific pain in his legs and shoulder, which makes it impossible for him to over-power her. She locks the door when she leaves. The phone is disconnected. And this unbalanced woman rations his food, water and pain pills with all the aplomb of a sadistic mental patient.

When King wrote the story in the 1980s, he was in a period in which he wanted to break out of the pop horror genre, but the marketplace and obsessive fans, represented by Annie, were pushing back. The fact that he ends up in Misery not able to publish the book he has toiled on for 36 months, shows just how hemmed in he feels.

Morrison’s Sheldon represents the intellectual side of this battle, pitted against the emotional violence of Annie combined with her physical upper-hand. He never stops hoping and scheming his escape. But Annie’s simplistic approach to supervising Sheldon’s captivity is a tough adversary. For much of the play, he is a slightly better-cared-for victim similar to the women Buffalo Bill kept in a pit dug in his basement in Silence of the Lambs.

The Dio Dining & Entertainment’s production, running through Oct. 19 is not terrifying. But there are few things more terrifying than the feeling of being helpless; that nothing you do is going to work to solve this attack on one’s freedom and well-being. Whether it’s happening to one’s self or a loved on, it is an ugly, awful situation to be in. Stevens has a heavy burden trying to do the role after Kathy Bates’ tour de force in the film version. But she very much makes the character her own, toggling between a caring “no. 1 fan” of Sheldon’s and sadistic captor. She is damaged, lonely, mentally ill, rejected, isolated and desperate. Having one’s fate in the hands of somebody so devoid of sense or sanity is a truly terrifying prospect.

Directed by Steve DeBruyne with a clever set design by Technical Director Matthew Tomich, adroitly frames the performances and the story telling. The house where all the action takes place is all two-by-fours so that the audience can see the actors holed up in the bedroom, as well as seeing Stevens’ comings and goings in front of the house, and her and Sheldon’s movements in the kitchen.

Jordan Hayes-Devloo turns in a solid job of playing Buster, the local sheriff who comes to the house twice on suspicion that Annie knows something about Sheldon’s disappearance. He has a knowing Andy Taylor-like approach to his rural Colorado patch. Norma Polk is on costumes, and Eileen Obradavich on props for the isolated house. Jen Pan, Joe Wright and Carrie Sayer are fight captains/intimacy directors.

The pre-show dinner was tinkered for this production; the fried chicken replaced with Annie’s Infamous Meatloaf, with Dirty Birdie Sweetcorn and Cockadoodle Mashed Potatoes. Patrons can bring wine to the performance.

The show runs 2 hours and ten minutes with no intermission. It goes by fast with such a good story delivered by a talented cast and company.