By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“)
The final production for the Jefferson Performing Arts Society’s 2022-23 season is Misery, the play written by the late scriptwriter William Goldman, who also famously wrote the scripts for the movie of the same title and is also favorably remembered for penning the cult classic “The Princess Bride.”

Based upon the novel by horror writer Stephen King, Misery is not destined to be a cult classic. The Rob Reiner film, which starred the late James Caan and Kathy Bates secured an Academy Award for Bates, but it includes many scenes of physical torture, psychological terror and suspense.
It was made into a stage play twice, the most successful of the two being this second version written by Goldman, which enjoyed a short run on Broadway in 2015 with Bruce Willis starring opposite Laurie Metcalf in a Tony-nominated role.
(Please note: the following contains spoilers.)
The “Misery” novel, King’s 21st, was steeped in a psychological and physical battle between the two protagonists, as imagined by the prolific author. Following publication, King told others that the novel was the result of his battle with writer’s block and addiction to pain medication, which also figures heavily in the book.

Currently playing at the Westwego Cultural Center (formerly Teatro Wego!), the play stars real life husband and wife team Eric Lincoln as romance writer Paul Sheldon and Reagan Lincoln as Annie Wilkes, his ‘number one fan.” Also featured is David L. Haydel in the role of Sheriff Buster.
As Sheldon, Eric Lincoln finds himself waking up in a bed in a rural cabin following his rescue by Wilkes following a car accident in a blizzard. He has suffered severe compound fractures in both legs and is in severe pain. Wilkes informs him that she is his “number one fan” and assures him that she is a former nurse and that she had successfully set his two legs with metal splints. The roads are quite impassable due to the snow, she informs Sheldon, but she will contact his agent and his daughter to let them know he is alive and well. Wilkes begins to ply Sheldon with a powerful medication that allows him to endure the excruciating pain, but also begins to addict him physically and psychologically.

In addition to the obvious name of the torture Sheldon endures, one of his creations in the romance novel universe is the character Misery Destiny, a woman who is at the center of 12 of his previous books and Annie’s personal favorite. His 13th installment is about to be published, but it contains an unexpected demise for the heroine, who dies in childbirth. When Annie reads the book and learns that Misery is gone, she begins to plot to bring her back to life with Sheldon’s help.
Annie’s complex character of an obsessed fan seems at first harmless enough. But every word of assurance she gives Paul soon proves false and every promise she makes to him turns out to be a lie. We even learn that the accident that brought him to her place may have been caused by her, as she admits to the sheriff investigating his disappearance that she was following him in her car on that ill-fated day.
In King’s novel, Wilkes severs one of Sheldon’s feet and cauterizes the wound with a blowtorch. Thankfully, both the film and the play avoid that bloody scene, but Goldman does include a chilling scene where Sheldon’s ankles – propped up with a board – endure smashing with a sledgehammer, an act that Annie calls hobbling, describing it as a preferred practice of keeping diamond workers in South Africa from stealing diamonds and running away.

All of the actors are quite good in their roles, but especially Reagan Lincoln, whose psychopathic Annie Wilkes drives the show. Eric Lincoln plays the tortured writer quite satisfactorily, having to be quite physical in many scenes in which he attempts to flee the prison of his bedroom.
This is billed as a dark comedy, but it should more appropriately be labeled as horror or terror. There’s simply very little that’s funny about kidnapping, torture and abuse or that the two seemed destined for an inevitable physical confrontation. The beauty of Misery is that the two protagonists battle each other through their wits first with the penultimate scene being the actual battle.
The set designed by Derek Blanco is also wonderfully arranged and is very well lit by lighting designer Scott Sauber.
First time JPAS director Simone Daniel, who hails from New York, is also listed as the sound designer and has focused recently on audio sound designs for other productions. Her insistence on rendering the sound designs might have kept her from focusing on the overall scope and tension of the show as the director. There were several instances where the sound design seemed to be overly produced and distracting from the stage performances of the actors.
Misery (1 hour and 50 minutes with no intermission) is written by the late William Goldman and directed by Simone Daniel. It plays Thursday through Saturday nights at the Westwego Cultural Center, 166 Sala Avenue in Westwego on Thursday through Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m. and concludes on Sunday, April 2 at 2:00 p.m.