STAGE REVIEW : Going Through Motions With ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ : The American Renegade Theatre revival fails to press for the relevance of the story from the ‘60s.

Dale Wasserman’s play adaptation of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is designed as an act of liberation from authority, from the State, even from motherhood--with the mental asylum potentate Nurse Ratched as all three. In the ‘60s, when the novel was essential reading, Ratched’s rebel patient, R. P. McMurphy, was an essential figure--powerfully questioning the rules, rather hapless about what he wants to put in their place.

That was then, this is now, and one wonders what “Cuckoo’s Nest” means today. It makes little sense to revive the play without pressing for relevance, but that’s just what is happening in Elizabeth Meads’ staging at the American Renegade Theatre in North Hollywood.

This is a production going through the motions, without asking why. Is it possible, for example, to view McMurphy as less heroic, as out for himself and not his fellow inmates? Kesey and Wasserman allow for this possibility--this guy’s a card shark making big winnings off his unsuspecting associates--but neither Meads nor Sean Moloney as McMurphy delves into such complications.

Moloney, with burly, tattooed arms, tight jeans and a curly mop of long hair, plays up the ‘60s image of the independent against the system, or “the combine,” as quietly boiling inmate Chief Bromden (Ryan Michaels) calls it. Moloney shies away from McMurphy’s innate dangerousness, as if forgetting that McMurphy is in this place for displaying signs of psychopathology or, even worse, faking them. He’s a hero-snake, as Jack Nicholson understood in the film version. We don’t need another Nicholson turn, but Moloney hasn’t evoked McMurphy’s sullied past.

Two snakes know each other on sight, and Ratched spots this guy right away. She’s a megalomaniac, but she’s also Mother; actress Susan Anders doesn’t pin her down in either area, nor does her head always seem to be in the role (last Saturday, she kept misidentifying her opponent as “Mr. Murphy”). Wasserman’s play works best as a pure clash of wills, but Meads’ key actors aren’t armed for the fight.

The actors portraying the other inmates are much more at home, particularly Barry Thompson, as borderline sane, effete Harding, and Mark Murphy, who painstakingly turns Billy Bibbit, Ratched’s favorite easy target, into a walking open wound.

Michaels’ low-key Bromden is sometimes drowned out by Marlene Hadju’s bombastic music and David Marling’s loud, ineffective sound. Elina Katsioula’s tiled set is pure Institution, but it is marred by Beth McGeehan’s spotty, malfunctioning lights.

WHERE & WHEN TOPPER

Play: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Where: American Renegade Theatre, 11305 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood.

Hours: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through July 26.

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.

Price: $12.

Call: (818) 763-4430.