Stephen King must have given himself nightmares while writing "Misery," his 1987 novel that puts a pop-culture author at the mercy of an unbalanced (to say the least) nurse.

		"Misery" Where: South Park Theatre, near South Park Fairgrounds, Corrigan Drive at Brownsville Road. When: Through Oct. 9; Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 4 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 7 p.m. Tickets: $10; 412-831-8552.

That story, now on the South Park Theatre stage, took a circuitous route from King's book to the popular 1990 Rob Reiner movie, to Simon Moore's stage adaptation. Details have changed along the way, but the basic story remains the same: Writer Paul Sheldon wrecks his car, then is "rescued," tortured and humiliated by demented recluse Annie Wilkes.

While the play, like its predecessors, is designed to evoke the maximum number of winces and gasps by presenting Annie's violent and degrading reactions to perceived slights, the work's underlying theme is control of one's fate and how to retain it when others would try to wrest it away. Total dependence on others, whether voluntary or imposed, can take that control from our hands, and regaining it is a long and daunting task.

For the stage, Moore has condensed the story to a mano-a-mano face-off between the two main characters by eliminating all of the supporting characters from the book and movie. At South Park, the roles are in the hands of two savvy local favorites: veteran actor and South Park executive director Audrey Castracane and her most versatile and prolific performer, Dale Irvin.

Castracane portrays Annie as the perfect lunatic with nary a sane thought or action and a reality so altered as to be nonexistent. She lives in Annie's world, enforcing Annie's incontrovertible rules and allowing no outside influences to make her question her motives or actions. Castracane convincingly captures her character's volatile nature, punctuating the transition from childlike glee to demonic anger and frustration with a brief, trancelike state. It is a performance much like the car wreckage from which the crazed nurse extracts Paul -- too uncomfortable to watch yet too eerily fascinating to turn away from.

Irvin shines in the scenes in which the kidnapped author musters the courage to defy his tormentor or when portraying the physical and psychological anguish being doled out by his self-proclaimed "No. 1 fan." But the actor seems to be uncomfortable in Paul's skin when he needs to display the writer's suave charm in attempts to woo his love-struck captor into making his plight a little easier.

Director Lynn DeBree manages to build suspense throughout, but frequent, overly long blackouts make it difficult to sustain. Her multilayered set aptly projects the squalor of Annie's house and of her life.