While John Steinbeck may have felt this work should not be interpreted as “an unrelieved tragedy”, in the wrong hands his desolate tale of unfulfillable dreams and crushed ambitions can seem to be just that.
Even in the right hands - such as the cast in Kevin Dyer’s opening play in his theatre’s new season - it is sometimes difficult to accept the writer’s theory that the very fact his characters still have their dreams is a cause for optimism.
The enigmatically rootless dustbowl drifters Lennie and George are classic literary and dramatic creations - the former a powder keg simpleton whose only hope of a reasonable life is the ambitious but doomed friend he has to increasingly rely on.
Keeping the emotional balance between their brain and brawn and our sympathy and repulsion can be a problem but here the interaction between Paul Dodds as a determined but doomed George and Andrew Ashford as a giant of a Lennie is handled superbly. Remarkably this is Ashford’s first professional role so to make him as believable as he does is all the more of an achievement.
The Midwest ranch they are contracted to is a purgatory between the life they have escaped from and the dreams they are trying to run to - and Alison Heffernan’s set makes it a baking hot mainly male domain of loners and loser from which the only guarantee of escape would seem to be death.
The only woman is married to the ranch owner’s son but as “Curley’s Wife” isn’t even credited with her own name and Cloudia Swann pitches perfectly the balance of flirtatiousness and desperation which inevitably leads to her downfall.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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