STAGE WEST: Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company's "Misery"

Francis Gercke and Maggie Carney in "Misery."                                                           Photo by Daren Scott

            With its taut and terrifying production of William Goldman’s “Misery,” Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company caps an exceptional 2024 season that also included Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive” and Martin McDonagh’s “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.” Each show more unnerving than the next, Backyard demonstrated – as it has practically from its very beginning – that its work is bold and unafraid to unsettle.
            “Misery,” of course, is Goldman’s adaptation of horror novelist supreme Stephen King’s 1987 novel which three years later became a film (written by Goldman and directed by Rob Reiner) best remembered for a towering performance by Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, imprisoned writer Paul Sheldon’s “No. 1 fan.”
            Under the deft direction of MJ Seiber, Backyard Renaissance’s production exploits the smallish confines of the Tenth Avenue Arts Center theater to create a thick air of claustrophobia essential to the storytelling. Not only is crippled Paul (Francis Gercke) trapped in the little Colorado house that belongs to wackadoodle Annie (Maggie Carney), but so are we the audience. It isn’t 10 minutes into the story before we want out of that bed, out of that house, out of the clutches of Annie, whose initial solicitude gives way to mania.
            Furthering the suffocating atmosphere are Curtis Mueller’s muted lighting and sudden bursts of sound (including a kitchen alarm clock and later a horrific gunshot). For this production, Logan Kirkendall is sound designer, Jeffrey Neitzel special effects coordinator.
            I’m not sure why the between-scenes playing of mostly ‘60s pop songs works as well as it does, too. Maybe it’s the incongruity of hearing the cheerful, jangly tunes in the midst of this frightening tale.
            The production opens with Paul already in a sickbed, having been pulled from the wreckage of his ’65 Mustang (hey – that works fine with the pop tunes!) by Annie, a trained nurse who is ministering to him mainly out of sheer adoration. She lives for – and she tells him so, over and over – his “Misery” romance novels, Victorian sagas of heroine Misery Chastain. It quickly becomes obvious, to Paul and to us, that Annie’s devotion is rooted in the crazy zone. Still, as she goes off the rails we’re startled, even when we know something violent is forthcoming.
            I’ll leave out the particulars but will say that they’re as graphically portrayed as possible in a stage production.
            As with Hitchcock at his sliest or Spielberg with “Jaws,” the terror resides in what is not seen or shown … until it is. Goldman’s script of King’s novel, and this Backyard Renaissance production, employ that same dread anticipation and smoldering suspense. The looming question is: Will Paul get out of this?
            None of this would be as effective and gripping without the right Annie and the right Paul. This production has both. Carney, who relocated to Los Angeles several years ago but returns to San Diego (as she did last year for Backyard’s “August: Osage County”), ideally mixes Annie’s doting folksiness and eruptions of ferocity, all while not trying to channel Kathy Bates’ definitive portrayal. Carney’s is an Annie all her own – changing on a dime from hero worship to insanity.
            Gercke is not shackled by the restrictions of playing a character who can’t walk. His anguish and agony, and the cunning Paul employs in attempts to extricate himself from his living nightmare, are vivid and visceral. Just his cries of pain when he tries to crawl on the floor get under our skin. It’s a stout performance that has a desperation all its own.
            Alex Guzman appears for a couple of scenes as Buster, a sheriff who is rightly suspicious of what might be going on in Annie’s house. He’ll be sorry he was curious.
            As a writer, I wonder what I would do if I encountered an obsessive fan. Being neither Stephen King nor Paul Sheldon, I doubt this will happen. But should I ever find himself driving through a blinding snowstorm, I’ll be sure to take it slow and cautious just the same.
            “Misery” runs through Dec. 7 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown.