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Phil Hopkins
Group Travel Editor & Theatre Correspondent
@philhopkinsuk
10:32 AM 6th March 2014
arts

Steinbeck - The Timeless Commentator

 
Of Mice and Men is not really a play to laugh at, but there was a slight murmur in the audience as one of the central characters commented: "You're free when you ain't got a job, if you ain't hungry."

As we painfully start to exit Britain's so-called 'recession', a minor blip compared with America's Great Depression of the 1930s, it is clear that John Steinbeck's masterpiece of humanity still speaks to generations nearly 80 years on from when it was first published.

When you have been stripped of everything you have - there was no iPhone, Sky TV or housing benefits in the dust bowl of America - then all you are left with is each other and the fear of what might be if you don't have companionship or someone to care for you in your time of need.

And that's the appeal of this far-reaching drama with all the emotional expanse of the American Prairies - human themes that strike a chord with every generation, loneliness, being trapped, desperation, fear, love.

This was Associate Director, Mark Rosenblatt's first production for the West Yorkshire Playhouse since taking up his post, and he captured beautifully the physical and emotional desolation of Steinbeck's sixth novel, the pencil sharpener to his real masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath.

Set in America's agricultural wilderness, where desperate itinerant labourers travelled from farm to farm in the hope of food and wages, Of Mice and Men, inspired by the poetry of Scotland's Bard, Robbie Burns, articulates the fragile dream that keeps three of its main characters from disappearing into the mire of despair.

Physically large but simple, forgetful and plain 'dumb' according to his travelling companion George (Henry Pettigrew), Lennie (Dyfrig Morris) is obsessed with all things soft that he can stroke, particularly rabbits.

But he is so strong he innocently kills everything he touches including Curley's wife (Heather Christian) after she invites him to stroke her hair and the situation gets out of hand.

The power of this play - and indeed this production - is that you feel like a voyeur watching someone else's deprivation; part of you wants to turn away, slightly embarrassed, whilst that other part within MUST carry on watching because you know it could be you; there but for the grace of God..........

Someone once said to a comedian: "You are worth millions, why do you carry on working so hard?"

"Because you never know when a loaf of bread is going to cost £100" came the reply.

And that's just it. None of us know when a life changing scenario might present and catapult us into an unknown situation leaving us as bare as the day we were born. Ask Jeffrey Archer.

Curley knows his large bumbling friend must die for killing Curley's wife, but he doesn't want it to be at the hands of a lynch mob so he pulls the trigger, out of love, just as the husband in latter day Britain smothered his sick, dying wife under a pillow, because he loved her so much.

Mercy killings, shattered dreams, loneliness, they're all in their, precisely and carefully crafted onto the West Yorkshire Playhouse's expansive stage, the perfect setting for such a large play in every sense of the word.

This was an emotional journey in which a mirror was held up to every member of the audience. The multi talented Heather Christian as musical director, composer and performer (Curley's wife), delivered her own brand of musical chant which for me, had an almost funereal sadness to it, again, totally apt for the subject matter.

John Rosenblatt and his wonderful cast should be congratulated.

Until March 29th (2014)