A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the play chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Nurse Ratched. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy’s revolution against Nurse Ratched and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results.