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Suirfire Productions is promising audiences plenty of “jumps” and “surprises” during a tense and gripping tale of obsession, entrapment and inner demons.
This is the first time the stage version of Stephen King’s Misery has toured Ireland. The American writer is known for his scary fantasy and science-fiction novels in which clowns are never good, pets are seemingly possessed, husbands a little unstable and women a tad unpredictable. And the latter is true of his female lead Annie Wilkes, Misery’s main character.
The story follows Wilkes, a psychologically unstable woman who rescues famous novelist Paul Sheldon from a near fatal car crash after having just finished his latest book. An increasing sense of danger begins to settle in as his “number one fan” takes him home and he realises nobody knows he is there. Brought to life in the 1990 film starring Kathy Bates and James Caan (Bates won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal), this stage adaptation by Simon Moore features Wilkes played by well-known Waterford face Denise Quinn, while Joe Meagher takes the role of Sheldon.
“Thrillers are popular and Stephen King is a master of such genres,” says director John Grubb. “He’s great at creating characters far removed from reality but realistic at the same time. It’s a clever adaptation that stays true to the book with an exciting back-and-forth between the main characters and sudden twists. Anyone who has seen the film will still be surprised. It’s set in a dark house – a dungeon of terror, if you like – where Denise’s character has a fantasy they will live happily ever after, but he’s fighting to get out, so she tries to physically and psychologically destroy him.”
