Such is Misery, the final offering of the 2007/8 season by the Canadian Stage Company at the Bluma Appel Theatre at the St. Lawrence Centre. It is based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Stephen King, most famous for his long list of horror fiction. Then in 1990 Rob Reiner directed a movie based on the book, starring Kathy Bates (it garnered her a Best Actress Oscar) and James Caan. The stage adaptation is by British writer/director Simon Moore. It made its debut in London in 1992. Moore is most famous, perhaps, for his six-hour mini-series, Traffik, about the international heroin trade, and on a more benign side, his adaptations of Gulliver's Travels and The Tenth Kingdom.

Now, here I have to admit that I have neither read King's novel, nor have I seen the movie Misery. Hence, I walked into the Bluma Appel Theatre without any pre-conceptions, looking only for a good evening's entertainment with two good actors. From all I read about the play, this was not an unreasonable expectation.

CanStage's version of the two-character psycho thriller consists of Nicola Cavendish giving an intense performance as Annie Wilkes, a very strange, former nurse, who happens to be the Number One fan of romance novelist Paul Sheldon, played by Tom McCamus. Moore is well known for writing strong female leads. Gathering from what King writes in general, he took advantage of the novelist's creepy character in writing a part in which Annie hides suppressed rage under the veneer of being a cheery, prim and proper, eccentric woman living on a lonely and neglected Colorado farm. As it becomes quickly evident, it takes very little to push Annie over the edge, something her 'hero' soon discovers, and something Cavendish knows how to carry off.

McCamus has a less juicy role as a popular writer with a desire to gain literary acceptance by writing a stream of consciousness novel that differs greatly from his usual romances. Still, the actor knows how to bring out the subtle undertones of the character. Since there may be more people like me out there who do not know the story, I won't give it all away, but I have to tell that this attempt at literary relevance enrages Annie, and puts Paul's life in the balance. Why? Having completed his 'masterpiece', Paul drove his car off the road during a snowstorm while UI. Annie stumbles across him and brings him to her abode. There, she nurses him and his severely injured legs by keeping him in a drug-induced stupor.

Things change when the writer allows her to read his only copy of his new novel, which turns out to be unlike his usual work and enrages Annie's delicate sensibilities by containing profanities. These profanities, for reasons I fail to understand, elicited a lot of laughter in the audience at all the wrong moments. Things get even worse in the relationship of the two characters when Annie receives her long-awaited new novel in the 'Misery' series—of which she has read every volume—and discovers that Paul has killed off his Victorian heroine.

The simple set by Bretta Gerecke consists mostly of the ribs of the farm house walls, and a closed upper storey made mysterious through lights appearing in various windows. This simple approach captures exceedingly well the unreality of the situation in which Paul finds himself. Locked away from the outside world that appears to have given up on finding him, he is forced to write chapters of a new Misery novel in which he has to bring the heroine back to life.

The play, ultimately, is about who will get the upper hand in this story, the unbalanced jailer or the prisoner in his role as a male Sheherazade. The script has built into it moments of humor, which are quickly followed by moments of horror. Sadly, director David Storch did not always develop those moments to the fullest. Mainly, he would have served the play better had he abstained from introducing a musical score by James Fisher into this story. Not only does it often give away that something is about to happen, thereby reducing the tension that the two actors worked so hard at to achieve, it also irritates and has no relevance in the play.

Still, having expected nothing more than to be entertained, Misery achieved this for me. It turned out to be a good night at the theater.

[Misery by Stephen King, adapted for the stage by Simon Moore, Bluma Appel Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre until March 31]