Review: MISERY is Anything But at Merrimack Repertory Theatre

Whether indie films like “Waitress,” coming-of-age dramas like “The Outsiders,” or comedies like “Beetlejuice,” film-to-stage adaptations most often take the form of Broadway musicals, including Hollywood classics such as “Sweet Smell of Success,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” and more.

There aren’t any song-and-dance numbers in the William Goldman adaptation of his 1990 screenplay for the psychological thriller “Misery,” however. Instead, it’s a dramatic cat-and-mouse game based on Stephen King’s 1987 novel of the same name. The taut drama that made the movie a hit is captured in Goldman’s 2012 stage version, which led to the 2015 Broadway production and is currently being presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre, in an attention worthy 47th-season opener, through November 2.

The story centers on a fraught encounter between New York novelist Paul Sheldon, whose bestselling book series featuring the titular heroine Misery Chastain has earned him considerable success, and a self-proclaimed “number one fan,” Annie Wilkes. They meet when the off-kilter Annie rescues the author from a debilitating automobile accident during a Colorado blizzard, beginning a harrowing new chapter in his life.

The film version, directed by Rob Reiner, starred Kathy Bates as Annie in a haunting performance that won Bates the Academy Award for Best Actress and kickstarted her movie career, and James Caan as Paul. Laurie Metcalf and Bruce Willis assumed the roles in the 2015 Broadway production.

Mindful that Bates and, to a lesser degree, Metcalf would be hard acts to follow, director Coutney Sale, MRT’s executive artistic director, has wisely cast Karen MacDonald as Wilkes. A founding company member of the American Repertory Theater, where she appeared in 73 productions, the versatile MacDonald is an actor virtually without peer in greater Boston.

Under the pulse-raising direction of Sale, that status is being affirmed once again by MacDonald’s performance as an unspooled mountain woman who begins to come fully off the bobbin when she learns that her favorite author plans to kill off her favorite character, Misery. Intent on forcing Paul to do a rewrite, she fusses over and then fumes at him in her remote home, their relationship becoming more charged with each moment. MacDonald’s high-dudgeon Annie is something to watch – and, for anyone who gets in her way, someone to fear.

As Annie’s hobbled houseguest-turned-captive, Tom Coiner is a formidable Paul. Even bedridden, he’s a match for Annie. While, unlike Caan and Willis, Coiner lacks the seductive aura that Paul usually puts to his advantage with Annie. He does, however, have his character’s customary survival instincts, evidenced as he struggles to navigate his wheelchair around Ryan Bates’s authentic-looking set – which comes complete with a vintage Smith-Corona manual typewriter, and is enhanced by Brian Lilienthal’s mood-setting lighting design.

Christopher Centinaro also makes an impression in his small role as Buster, a law enforcement officer staggered by his encounter with Annie. Buster's uniform aside, the actors are not especially well served by Costume Designer Yao Chen. Indeed, the jeans and oversized flannel shirts Chen puts on MacDonald telegraph Annie’s crazy quotient too soon in the story, undercutting the character’s brief but affecting moments of offbeat folksiness.

Fight director Ted Hewlett adds considerably to the production’s fear factor with some scarily realistic showdowns – and, yes, they do involve the familiar mallet-wielding moment. David Remedios’ sound design not only augments the atmosphere of the play but also includes audio snippets of Annie’s favorite performer, Liberace, singing, what else, her favorite love songs.

And any audience members needing to release some post-show tension should linger as they leave, because Remedios has queued up a perfectly chosen exit song, courtesy of Peter Gabriel.