Is this perfect casting or what? Nicolas Cage — who’s almost as celebrated for his nutty outbursts as he is for his string of lousy movies (“The Wicker Man”) — playing Randle Patrick McMurphy in a revival of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Cage is considering bringing the show to Broadway next year, I hear from my friends at the asylum.
Producing would be Robert Cole and Fred Zollo, who lined up Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman for “A Steady Rain.”
They’re also at work on a revival of Arthur Miller’s excellent family drama “The Price.”
Cage appears to be one of those stars looking to bolster a wobbly film career (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”) with a Broadway triumph.
I’m not sure how he’ll pay that outstanding $14 million IRS bill, however. Star salaries for limited runs are nice — about $100,000 a week, if the show sells out — but that’s nothing compared to the millions he got for “Knowing,” another masterpiece of the American cinema.
Still, he was a terrific actor once upon a time, and a good role like McMurphy might get the juices flowing again. Gary Sinise did well by it on Broadway in 2001.
The Post’s Clive Barnes called Sinise’s performance “raw and thrilling theatricality,” while the Times said it was “full throttle.”
He was even able to overcome memories of Jack Nicholson, who won an Oscar as McMurphy in the 1975 movie.
That’s a pretty tall order.
If Cage isn’t sure he can do that, he should make “Grindhouse II” instead.
‘MAMMA Mia!” contin ues to conquer the globe.
The long-running ABBA smash just opened in Beijing. This is the 14th production that’s been translated into another language.
Already the yuan are flowing in, upping the show’s worldwide gross to more than $2 billion.
The critics loved the show — I read Mandarin — but I’m told that a couple of reporters asked for clarification on plot points.
“My mother couldn’t understand why Donna is with three men,” one reporter told a member of the production team.
(If there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen the show, Donna is the lead character. She’s startled when three ex-lovers, one of whom is the father of her daughter, turn up at the hotel she runs in Greece.)
Most Western music was banned in China during the ’70s and ’80s, so Bjorn Ulvaeus was surprised when just about every reporter he met there said they grew up listening to his songs.
It’s comforting to know that no government, no matter how repressive, can stamp out “Dancing Queen.”
DONALD Lyons, who was The Post’s chief theater critic from 1998 to 2002, died Tuesday at 73. Before coming to The Post, he reviewed Broadway for the New Criterion and the Wall Street Journal.
An expert on the plays of Eugene O’Neill, the scholarly Lyons had been part of the Warhol crowd and a fruging fixture at The Factory in the ’70s.
He could be a witty writer. His review for the thriller “Wait Until Dark” began: “Dial M for Mess.”
In her National Book Award-winning memoir, “Just Kids,” Patti Smith credits Lyons with taking her to Max’s Kansas City to hear the Velvet Underground, inspiring her to become a musician.
