Breaking Baz: Clint Dyer Set To Soar In The West End With All-Black Casts For Three Vital American Plays, Including ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’

EXCLUSIVE: Clint Dyer, writer-actor-producer and, until last year, the trailblazing deputy artistic director of the UK’s National Theatre, has pulled off something of a coup de théâtre with the decision to direct three scorching American plays, all with Black casts, on the London stage this year.

Those three plays are One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Story and American Buffalo — each powerful dramas, written in three separate decades over the past half a century, with narratives potent enough to reflect a worryingly destabilised society. 

Just as Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another reverberate America’s heartache, the sizzling American plays that Dyer’s chosen to oversee artistically foreshadow in different ways the cause of the country’s recent cardiac arrest. 

At least, that’s what I felt after re-reading the scripts for each play.

They follow the acclaimed Death of England trilogy that Dyer directed, and co-authored with Roy Williams (Sucker Punch, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads). That series of plays originated at the National Theatre where they explored with a throbbing, troubling rawness, the treacherous social and political turbulence that has knocked the UK’s spirit.

“The way into one idea can be plentiful; it took three plays to really articulate what we wanted to talk about,” Brit Dyer says of the Death of England plays, which were captured by the National’s NT Live cameras.

Fast forward to today, and it’s another mammoth undertaking by Dyer and his associates to mount three sharply contrasting American dramas at three different addresses over twelve months.

The depth of thought that has gone into assembling them is remarkable, as are Dyer’s thoughts about what links them: “American amnesia really. It’s about the American lie. The inability to recognize that our past is embroiled and baked into our present,” the theater artist says of his season, which kicks off with Dale Wasserman’s 1963 adaptation of Ken Kesey’s seminal 1962 work One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Old Vic, with performances from April 1 – May 23.

This is a very different Cuckoo’s Nest from Milos Forman’s 1975 Oscar-winning movie starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher, which opted to tell the story of oppressed patients in a state mental hospital in the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of Nicholson’s Randle McMurphy, whereas in the book Kesey favours an indigenous American character. 

The Old Vic cast — the majority are Black — is led by Michelle Gomez (Doctor Who, The Flight Attendant) as Nurse Ratched; Aaron Pierre (The Morning Show, The Underground Railroad) as Randle McMurphy; and Giles Terera (Death of England: Delroy, Hamilton) as Dale Harding.

Dyer believes that the film, and some productions of the play, stripped Kesey’s story of its identity: “By that, I mean stripped of the main core central tenet, which is talking about colonialism. And it all comes from the perspective of the indigenous character Chief Bromden,” a character, to be played by Arthur Boan in Dyer’s version.

Dyer has rightfully restored prominence to the Chief so as to examine “how his loss of culture and identity has basically sent him mad, and it’s all narrated through Chief Bromden’s vision of what is actually happening. And he’s under the influence of drugs…And he’s supposedly paranoid, mute and deaf.”

In the original novel, Chief Bromden, the son of a Chinook tribal leader, suffered a psychotic breakdown while deployed with the U.S. Radar Corp during World War II, where the electromagnetic radio waves fuelled his hallucinatory imaginings of a controlling entity he refers to as ‘The Combine.’

Dyer rightly marvels that Kesey’s classic tale is “an incredible examination of America through the ultimate counterculture novel of that time. And for the story to have been filleted and homogenized [over the years] in such a fashion and still be bloody brilliant, is a real testament to the extraordinary storytelling.”

Even so, there have been productions of Wasserman’s play that have mimicked the movie rather than lean fully into the book. “The place that America is in right now is a real example of why the book is so prescient,” Dyer contends. “There’s always this idea that the acts of history don’t live in the present, so the effects of it are somehow muted. But actually the effects of history are driving our present.”. 

“And that’s the reason why I chose to do the play. It’s the reason why I wanted to cast the patients as African-Americans,” whereas in the film and the novel, the orderlies, who do Nurse Ratched’s bidding, are African-Americans and they still will be at the Old Vic, Dyer says.

I question him on the point of Black male orderlies who are instructed by Nurse Ratched to mete out barbaric punishment. Why couldn’t the orderlies have been played by Caucasian actors in this instance?  

Dyer urges me to take a moment to consider the number of predominantly male African-American voters that backed Trump, many of whom, polls now show, regret doing so.

“Misogynoir, I think is what they call it these days,” Dyer says referring to a term used to describe Black males who deserted Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. “The idea that we can be our own worst enemy is something that we have to accept and confront,” Dyer says.

He ponders over reasons why they let Harris down. “It’s really complicated,” he sighs. “It might have something to do with the way that we metabolize the ideology of whiteness. It’s a fascinating and insidious thing that we have to bear,” he says.

“And so within that, I also think that without African-Americans, the world would be a very sad place to live in. I think African-Americans have held such a moral line, have had such tenacity under fire, have had such humility and artistry, that of course I’m going to hold up African Americans.”

Dyer adds a chilling comment praising the survival of African Americans: ”They’re to be respected and cherished for the way they’ve not been exterminated. That was the idea, wasn’t it? And yet they thrive and teach and encourage.“

Leaning back in his seat, Dyer continues: ”Of course they did everything they could to try and eradicate or silence or subjugate as possible. The question is: are they trying to do that again? Are we so caught up with looking at Instagram that we are not understanding what is happening?”

Ever since Trump decided to run for president, he argues, “we knew what was going on. We’ve always known what’s going on.”

In the show, Dyer says, McMurphy speaks of a pecking party. “A pecking party as he explains it, is where the chickens, if they spot a tiny speck of blood on wounded flock, they peck and peck away at the one with the blood until they kill it,” he says citing Kesey’s description of how Nurse Ratched would initiate the “pecking” by ruthlessly exposing one patient’s weaknesses to others on the ward. 

“We only recognize it when we realized we’re the chicken,” Dyer says. “We’re the chicken with a speck of blood, then we’ll suddenly do something about it. And so again, this play works with such great metaphor about the world we live in the West, which is why I wanted to do it, which is also why I wanted to do The Story at the National, which is why I’m also doing American Buffalo in the West End. So I’m doing three American plays that I hope I can use as a tool to allow us to think about the world we live in.”

Dyer explains that “The Story is about the idea of who gets to tell the story, who owns the story, and where the truth out of one person’s mouth is the same from another person’s mouth,” he says referring to Tracey Scott Wilson’s 2003 drama about race, politics and ethics in a newsroom that has its London premiere in the Olivier from August 27 through October 24 with a company that includes Letitia Wright (Black Panther, Small Axe), Lorraine Toussaint (Orange is the New Black, The Equalizer), Ashley Thomas (Hostage, Top Boy) Wilf Scolding (Andor, Game of Thrones) and Jay Simpson (The Day of the Jackal, The Holiday).

The production that runs at the National Theatre will be a revised version of the play I caught at the Public Theater over two decades ago. It’s still an exploration of race, ambition and journalistic ethics involving Yvonne (Wright), but a lot of new work has been done on the play for the National’s run, says Dyer, including workshops and sessions with the playwright and the show’s creatives

“I think it’s closer now to what Tracey originally wanted to do it. New plays always take revision. And I think, if I speak for her, that she’s very happy to have another crack at it,” Dyer explains.

There’s much more of a “rounded understanding of how a woman could get into that situation…I think we as a theater-going audience require much more depth in character and storytelling.” 

Wilson’s play originated before Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, but it’s somehow, he says, been recalibrated to reflect that term. “It’s harder to lie in private, so we lie in public, and tell you it’s the truth. The notion is that I’m allowed to tell you something as the truth as long as I believe it,” he says shaking his head. 

We’re now in an age, says Dyer, “where if we feel it, therefore it is. If I feel something is the truth, then it’s my truth. We don’t search for the empirical evidence. We don’t need evidence anymore to be convinced that my truth is the truth.”

Even the veracity of multiple videos detailing a situation from every angle is disputed.

“And so they had to double down because we can see everything,” he says of the doubters. “They’ve had to double down on what the truth is and what a lie is.”

There will be a further workshop of The Story with the full company in May “and then we’ll be ready,” says Dyer.

As we sit talking in the Dean Street Townhouse restaurant in Soho, Dyer is more guarded when talking about being handed the reins to direct the revival of David Mamet’s 1977 scorcher of a play, American Buffalo, about three small-time hustlers working in a junk shop who want a bigger cut of the American dream. [The late acting titan, Robert Duvall originated the role of Teacher on Broadway, in-between shooting Francis Coppola’s first two Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now]. 

However, his excitement is palpable. “I’m very thrilled and honored to have got an American classic. I mean, obviously it’s the same with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but to get hold of a David  Mamet,” he says as if clutching a Rembrandt, “to get hold of American Buffalo…Again, speaking to the tragic nature of how poverty can still undermine the morality of its inhabitants, it still has as much fire and resonance as it did the day it was written for both countries.”

What does he mean by ‘both countries’, I ask? “Well, look, we’re in the West,” he shrugs.

“As our Prime Minister [Keir Starmer] keeps telling us, we have a very, very strong relationship with our U.S. partners.”

Scathingly, he adds: “Well, it’s fascinating that I suppose he has to say that. And he doesn’t talk about or finds it difficult to mention I.C.E.”

He adds: “If that was happening in any other country, they’d be thinking of, ‘how do we get rid of this person’. If that was a Black country they would’ve come in and they would’ve done something about it.“

We continue to talk about Trump’s vicious immigration sweeps through Minnesota, the misplaced adventures in Nigeria, and tough guy chest-thumping threats towards Venezuela, Greenland and Iran. 

Momentarily deflated, Dyer laments the state of U.S. politics and issues of race as “the worst it’s ever been.”

The unbearable situation there has made it “terrible for Black people around the fucking world,” he exclaims.

I’m keen to know whether or not he’s been allowed to revise Wasserman’s script in any way for the Old Vic?

 ”I did edit it,” he nods. “It’s not about me coming in and rewriting it all. This is my take on this piece of work…Of course I’m going to imbue it with a few, let’s say flourishes my own. But it is basically Dale Wasserman’s play.”

Mamet’s American Buffalo is hoping to open in the West End in late fall. There’s one more part to cast for the three-hander, says Dyer.

“We haven’t seen one of them on stage for a long, long, time,” he teases.

He admits to feeling humbled that he’s been allowed to thrive at this point in his career. “That was never meant to happen to Clint from Upton Park [in East London].”

Way back, I visited the set of Paul Anderson’s 1994 film Shopping starring Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Sean Bean, Jonathan Pryce, Jason Isaacs, Sean Pertwee, Fraser James, and Marianne Faithful. One Clint Dyer had a tiny part playing a car thief. He still sees Law around and about, every now and then.

That night, we were out in the sticks somewhere, and I saw Dyer chatting to Law, and suddenly remembered him as the kid that used to hang around at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, East London [scene of the 2012 London Olympics] in the 1980s. 

“Look, I didn’t go to RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art], I didn’t go to university. Everything that I’ve learned, I was taught by myself,” Dyer explains while noting that his mother was an auxiliary nurse and his father worked for the Ford Motor Company and then for Tower Hamlets Council in inner London. He has two older sisters, both of whom graduated from university. 

Dyer had a mentor in Philip Hedley, the inspirational artistic director of the Theatre Royal, Stratford. He readily acknowledges that it would “be impossible to be where I am without that mentorship.”

Backstage, onstage, front-of-house at Stratford East is where he discovered his love for the thespian arts. “I grew up in theater,“ he says. “Doing everything”, from stuffing envelopes for press nights and other odd jobs.

Hadley allowed Dyer to really understand “how the work gets to the stage, not just what happens on the stage,” which is why, to this day, he has great love for the crews “because they make theater.”

For him, theater is a “community sport. And a lot of people just look at the actors. And in some ways that’s why I love film so much because all of it is collaboration,” he says.

“That to me is the ultimate joy of the industry,” he adds as he recalls how when growing up in Upton Park, a friend’s dad was caretaker at the local cinema and he’d slip in and watch films for free. Dyer used to love the old Pearl and Dean adverts.

Then he points out of the window to Dean Street. When he used to come uptown when he was a lad, Dean Street meant Pearl and Dean to him. The old De Lane Lea production facility studio was up the road; the coffee shops were full of jobbing actors and post-production staff. “Dean Street and its environs was Hollywood to me,” he says grinning.

“The thing about Soho is that everybody is welcome…you can come from anywhere, from the richest to the poorest,” Dyer says as we talk about the gloriously seedy old drinking clubs that stayed open through the early hours that were frequented by everybody.

Back at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, he was thriving. He acted in Mike Leigh’s A Great Big Shame opposite Marianne Jean Baptiste and Michele Austin; he was voted onto the board, and he directed The Big Life in 2004; a year later it transferred  into the West End.

Dyer’s central role in director Robert Heath’s 2010 film Sus, based on Barrie Keeffe’s play, was a turning point for him. His gripping performance as a man who is brutally interrogated by two police officers was debated in the House of Commons. But he says he “was never that guy as an actor,” so he turned more and more to directing and producing while taking on the occasional role in shows like Prime Suspect.  

For years, he shared an apartment in Dean Street, and from his seat in the Dean Street Townhouse, he turns towards a window and points to a building where he’d once lived.

To this day, he enjoys hanging out with friends in Soho, and could find his way around its back streets blindfolded.  

We’ve been talking for hours, and he realizes he has to get across town to the Old Vic to prepare for lift off with what could be a ground-breaking production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Story and American Buffalo are going to be hot tickets too.