ON PAPER, the latest production by Swedish dance company Bounce sounds as crazy as its title – a streetdance version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Yet Insane In The Brain is an entertaining, exciting and – most surprisingly – sensitive treatment of mental illness.
Closer to the Milos Forman film than Ken Kesey's novel, it uses innovative dance routines to capture the most salient points of Kesey's story about a controlling psychiatric nurse and her dubiously diagnosed patients – in particular the way Randle M
cMurphy's healthy but slightly deviant mind is lost forever via a needless lobotomy.
"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is such a touching story," says Bounce dancer Jennie Widegren. "To see somebody's life – and light – squeezed out of them is just so sad. It's very common for people to try to do that – to make people feel smaller and less than they are – but here it's so literal."
Despite the weighty subject matter, the show has a humorous lightness of touch. During one especially witty scene, the patients abscond from hospital to watch a film – a silent movie set in a Swedish castle, in which a wealthy family takes part in a hip-hop battle with some local hoodlums. The dreamlike Flashdance pastiche, meanwhile, is one of the funniest dance routines I've ever seen.
There's poetic licence then, but all the film's key characters have been retained, with modifications. Widegren takes on Danny DeVito's childlike role Martini, and another female dancer becomes Christopher Lloyd's character Taber. For all, the transition from spoken word to dance is aided by astute hip-hop choreography, capturing the patients' various idiosyncrasies. "The Billy Bibbit character is shy and stuttering so we knew instantly he had to be a popper," says Widegren. "Taber is schizophrenic, so she has two different ways of moving, hard and soft. And my character, Miss Martini, regresses into childhood, so my dancing is very energetic and happy."
The show takes its title from a 1993 hit by rap group Cypress Hill, but has an unexpectedly diverse musical score, with hip-hop, pop, heavy rock, classical, jazz and bhangra. Choosing which music to use, along with everything else that happens in the show, must have taken a while. Bounce has no artistic director; the seven founding members make all the decisions themselves. "It takes longer to do things and you need more patience, but it's the best way of working," says Widegren. "It makes everybody feel responsible. We had our first gig in 1997 and had to choose a name for the company, so we all wrote down suggestions and took a vote – and that's how we've been working ever since."
Widegren and two fellow founding members have known each other since childhood, teaming up with four more dancers in the late 1990s when, as Widegren says, "the streetdance scene was dead".
They set about livening it up, and each dancer brought something unique to the group – be it a style of movement, love of music or specialist stage knowledge. Making decisions by committee may be time-consuming, but it certainly sorts the wheat from the chaff.
"It's been 12 years now, so we're used to working like this," says Widegren. "And we always say that if someone has an idea and throws it on the table, it has to pass through seven very critical people. We have two boards, one on each side of the stage. After each number people come off stage and write anything you think isn't working on the board. Then, at the end of the show, we go through the boards and discuss it."
Once a topic has been voted upon by all seven members, though, Bounce stick to their guns. It's a policy that was challenged recently, when the ending of Insane In The Brain was called into question. As in the film, McMurphy is suffocated by the Chief, who can't bear to see his friend in a vegetative state.
"So many producers told us you can't do that kind of ending here," says Widegren. "They wanted us to do a happy finale with a medley of all the good songs. But we said absolutely not. It's not a case that we can do it in Sweden but not in the UK – I think you can, you just need to have the guts. It's about having the courage to deliver this ending, and leave the audience with whatever thoughts are in their heads."
Bounce: Insane In The Brain, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Saturday until 26 October, then the Macrobert Centre, Stirling, 29-31 October www.insanetour.co.uk
This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 18 October 2009