Ooo, I love a good courtroom drama. And there's a fine one going on right now at the Gaslight Theater, kicking off St. Louis Actors’ Studio's season. Possibly best known for its 1987 film adaptation starring Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss, Tom Topor's NUTS… you know what I mean… opened as a play off-off Broadway in 1979 and transferred to Broadway the next year. The play all takes place inside a courtroom in New York's Bellevue Hospital, and although the play itself can seem a bit static at times, the dynamic performances from the high-caliber cast within it are anything but. It’s three acts with two intermissions, but once the first act gets going, the rest of the show flies by.
The play begins on the day of Claudia Faith Draper's sanity hearing (a compelling Lara Buck). She's a high-priced call girl who has been indicted for manslaughter. She claims she killed one of her clients in self-defense, but the state is trying to have her declared mentally unfit to stand trial. The state's witness, her arrogant psychiatrist Dr. Rosenthal (Steve Callahan), has determined that Claudia is a paranoid schizophrenic and should be hospitalized for her own good, and for the good of the state. Her mother and stepfather, Rose and Arthur Kirk (Donna Weinsting & John Contini), fearing that the details of Claudia's profession would be exposed in an embarrassing public trial, side with the state. Claudia insists that she's completely sane, and is equipped with an explicit understanding of the law. She knows that if she is denied the right to stand trial, because of the way New York's "Mental Hygiene Law" works, she could possibly be committed for up to 17 years. Claudia is going up against the system, and even though she has the help of her public defender, Aaron Levinsky (William Roth), she seems pretty much on her own.
The play begins on the day of Claudia Faith Draper's sanity hearing (a compelling Lara Buck). She's a high-priced call girl who has been indicted for manslaughter. She claims she killed one of her clients in self-defense, but the state is trying to have her declared mentally unfit to stand trial. The state's witness, her arrogant psychiatrist Dr. Rosenthal (Steve Callahan), has determined that Claudia is a paranoid schizophrenic and should be hospitalized for her own good, and for the good of the state. Her mother and stepfather, Rose and Arthur Kirk (Donna Weinsting & John Contini), fearing that the details of Claudia's profession would be exposed in an embarrassing public trial, side with the state. Claudia insists that she's completely sane, and is equipped with an explicit understanding of the law. She knows that if she is denied the right to stand trial, because of the way New York's "Mental Hygiene Law" works, she could possibly be committed for up to 17 years. Claudia is going up against the system, and even though she has the help of her public defender, Aaron Levinsky (William Roth), she seems pretty much on her own.
