THE GRAPES OF WRATH. To 21 October.
Pitlochry
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
by John Steinbeck adapted by Frank Galati
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 21 October 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 2, 27 Sept, 14 Oct 2pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 01796 484626
www.pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 August
Travelling hopefully seems better than to arrive.
It's wasn’t OK in Okie in the thirties, when mid-American farmers across Oklahoma, as elsewhere, had their livelihoods ruined by repeated crop-failures. As fields turned to dust they found hope in orange flyers offering work fruit-picking in California, and set off west. John Steinbeck's novel, capably carpentered by Frank Galati, follows the Joad family on the trail to hope or despair.
God or Nature might be blamed for the drought (the play opens with a minister rejecting religion), but society becomes the ultimate dehumanising force. Against this the Joads try to maintain faith in their future. At first they're a united baker's dozen, minister Casy included, their cohesion expressed as they crowd onto the huge old vehicle that transports them cross-country.
By the time they first look down on California, their number’s already dwindling; those remaining line across the stage in an impressive picture of anxious hope as the first act ends. To here, Ken Alexander's production handles the novel’s vast landscape magnificently.
As Adrian Rees's setting combines the huge, person-dwarfing countryside’s arid, throat-drying colours with the plain planks of knocked-together farm buildings, Alexander and his cast show the struggles, arguments and encouraging energy of the family members, notably Karen Davies' mother and Richard Galazka's Tom, an ex-con Valiant for Justice.
The second, Californian, act widens the political scope. Roosevelt’s interventionist government has limited influence way out west, limited to a government-run compound where the sole joyous moment, a dance, occurs, and from which the lawmen who enforce the bosses’ starvation wages and beat-up dissidents, are excluded.
Pitlochry’s production stumbles here, as if rehearsal time ran short on this large-canvas show. Individual performances feel less lived-in at key thematic points. More significantly, the staging often lacks the earlier impetus: characters merely walk on; set-changes no longer form part of the production’s choreography.
It remains a bold show; there’s no doubt Steinbeck’s narrative digs into social forces active today as ever, and not only in the USA. A brave, yet not reckless, choice for Pitlochry, it offers at least a half-evening of their large ensemble at the top of its form.
Narrator: Matthew Lloyd Davies
Jim Casy: Jonathan Coote
Tom Joad: Richard Galazka
Pa Joad: Robin Harvey Edwards
Ma Joad: Karen Davies
Granma Joad: Jenny Lee
Granpa Joad: Jonathan Battersby
Noah Joad: Darrell Brockis
Uncle John: Richard Addison
Ruthie: Jennifer Scott/Ruth Thomson
Winfield: Oliver Wale/James Williams
Rose of Sharon: Amy Ewbank
Connie Rivers: Jonathan Dryden Taylor
Al Joad: Anthony Glennon
Al’s Girl: Verity Kennard
Elizabeth Sandry: Helen Logan
Boy in Barn: James Beck/James Williams
Boy in Camps: Greig Joss/Connor Powell
Girl in Camps: Jess Baldwin/Helen Stewart
Orther parts (various performances): Albert Partland, Benita Wylie, Billy Neilson, Chris Gillies, Declan Maloney-Drummond, Fran Norris, Giles Conisbee, Iain McLellan, Margaret Sasada, Mary Macdonald, Steven Fitzgerald, Ray Wilson, Richard Drummond, Ruth McLaren, Vanessa Sherriffs, Wendy Huggins
Director: Ken Alexander
Designer/Costume: Adrian Rees
Lighting: Ace McCarron
Sound: Ronnie McConnell
Dialect & Accent coach: Lynn Bains
Fight director: Raymond Short
2006-08-29 12:37:04