of mice and men an adaptation john steinbeck

A rarity in American letters, it achieved remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films. The book's a 100-page sliver: it's quicker and richer just to read it. Audience Reviews for Of Mice and Men A decent adaptation that flunks due to a miscast John Malkovich in an over-the-top, cartoonish performance, looking too smart and cynical. Of Mice and Men also represents an experiment in form, as Steinbeck described his work, a kind of playable novel, written in novel form but so scened and set that it can be played as it stands. Here she cuts a lonely figure – the only woman for miles – whose search for company gets mistaken.īut this is all too little to justify nearly three hours of stage time. The book, in part, shows her through others' eyes, as a temptress to be avoided. Christian, in particular, is revelatory as Curley's nameless wife.

There's a testosterone shortage, too, without which you never feel the itch of impending catastrophe. Shapiro Of Mice and Men represents an experiment in form, which Steinbeck described as a kind of playable novel, written in novel form but so scened and set that it can be played as it stands. Max Jones's handsome panoramic set – barley and blue skies dominated by a working wooden windmill – feels plastic, without a sense of everyday backbreaking fieldwork. John Steinbeck’s adaptation of one of America’s most widely read and beloved novels, now on Broadway starring James Franco, Chris O’Dowd, and Leighton Meester, and directed by Anna D. When her music's integrated, as when Curley, the rancher's son, played by John Trindle, launches a percussive attack on Lennie, the show splutters into life. Christian is underused as background noise: mostly providing coyote calls and drawn-out double-bass. Rosenblatt will need more dynamite, however.

The impulse is right – not least in importing the singer Heather Christian, the distinctive, husky sound of Mission Drift, to provide, as Curley's wife, Depression-era song. Director Mark Rosenblatt says he wants to explode the text. For a play about bearing burdens with dignity, there's an awful lot of dramatic dead weight.

Of mice and men an adaptation john steinbeck