Review: Circle Players' OF MICE AND MEN

In Of Mice and Men, writer John Steinbeck relates the tale of two lifelong friends whose hard-scrabble lives are played out against the backdrop of the Great Depression: two men whose bleak existence is made even more challenging by the cruel realities of the world at that time. Since its publication in 1937, Steinbeck's slim novella has inspired artists to offer different interpretations of the story - to varying degrees of success, to be certain - including numerous film versions, a Carlisle Floyd opera, ballets and stage productions, including a recent Broadway run and, closer to home, a production now onstage from Middle Tennessee's oldest community theater organization.

Playing at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, in a production co-directed by Heather Alexander and Daniel DeVault for Circle Players, Of Mice and Men is a still effective, even moving, literary work. It continues to challenge viewers as Steinbeck's leading characters George Milton and Lennie Smalls strive to eke out a living in spite of the harshness of the world in which they live. But the source material shows signs of aging in Circle's production; in short, it is very much the product of its time and place. Contemporary audiences may blanch at the naked truth as told in Of Mice and Men: Women are creatures to be disdained, operating solely on their feminine wiles with which they entrap men unable to shrug off their carnal desires, men who succumb to their baser instincts in an effort to fulfill some primal need to somehow find intimacy in their lives; and African-Americans are objects of derision, considered wildly inappropriate and socially unacceptable in the brusquely unyielding world of their Caucasian bosses.

Steinbeck's spare, if rather dated, narrative focuses on the lonely, oftentimes solitary, lives of the men who travel from one ranch job to the next, always in search of something - anything - that will feed their need to belong. Yes, it's a universal story about the longing for stability and a home life that ensures Of Mice and Men will continue to be taught in American classrooms, as well it should be, but Steinbeck's exposition of that otherworldly time and place requires perspective and an innate understanding of how the world has evolved since then.

Drawing upon the same themes that would figure significantly in Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath (which follows the trek to the verdant farmlands of California by those Americans displaced by the Dust Bowl, which even further drove home the economic inequities of the Great Depression), the author drew inspiration from his own experiences as an itinerant farmworker and ranch hand to create a literary image of the hard-working American struggling to maintain a sense of dignity while scratching out the most meager of existences in a world determined to drain them of all their hopes and dreams.

Truth be told, Of Mice and Men moves at a glacial pace that was once de rigueur in stage melodrama (and make no mistake about, Of Mice and Men, despite its literary lineage, is redolent of melodrama throughout its two-and-a-half hours of playing time) and it is that troublesome - and troubling - pacing that presents the greatest challenge in producing a truly moving and effective work of art onstage. You might accept that its treatment of minorities (women and African-Americans, in this story) is representative of attitudes in the pre-World War II United States, no matter how abhorrent those prejudices might be, but if you are lulled to sleep by the treacly advancement of plot points so that the story's searing denouement seems an afterthought -- or simply manipulative -- well, it's hard to overcome such script-bound limitations.

Alexander and DeVault approach the material given them by Steinbeck to craft a well-designed production (although who aided in those efforts is unknown since the playbill fails to list any designers or technical crew members) and they have, thankfully, cast a strong ensemble of actors to bring the script to life on the Looby stage. The production's musical scoring is well-chose, for the most part, although why anyone would use Roger Miller's "King of the Road" for Of Mice and Men is beyond my comprehension. Yet, the directors deserve kudos for using both "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" and Stephen Foster's "Hard Times" - plaintive anthems of survival both - to effectively make scenic transitions unobtrusive and to move more smoothly.

Foremost in this new Circle Players revival are the performances of the two actors who lead the ensemble with a well-defined finesse and level of consistency. Mitchell Stevenson and Antonio P. Nappo play George and Lennie with a sense of unvarnished truth and absolute honesty - traits that are essential. Stevenson is the often exasperated spokesman for the pair, protecting Lennie along the way as they struggle to survive in a world that today seems as foreign and as far-fetched as the Middle Ages must be for most modern audiences. Nappo gives a finely nuanced performance as the lumbering, simple-minded Lennie, whose childlike demeanor belies his physical presence.

Stevenson and Nappo are given able, if perhaps uneven, support by the entire ensemble of actors assembled by Alexander and DeVault, who help to underscore the plot with a sense of pathos and intermittent humor. Eric Butler is outstanding as the blowhard Curley - moving about the stage like a bantam rooster, all arrogance and bluster. Morgan Fairbanks is stunningly gorgeous, looking as if she just stepped out of the pages of a mid-1930s fashion magazine, and Craig Hartline is quite good as Curley's father, aka The Boss.

Joseph Lovell's performance of ranch hand Slim is particularly noteworthy, while Ron Veasey, Ethan Treutle, Nick Boggs and Christian McLaurin complete the cast, each man obviously committed to the script and to the sense of desperation and despair that seems to roll over the stage and into the audience with a palpable sense of ennui, punctuated with intermittent moments of hopefulness that seems dreamlike in retrospect.

• Of Mice and Men. By John Steinbeck. Directed by Heather Alexander and Daniel DeVault. Presented by Circle Players, at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, Nashville. Through November 15. For details, go to www.CirclePlayers.net. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with one 15-minute intermission).

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