The Grapes of Wrath adapted by John Galati, REVIEW, Melbourne Theatre Company, 13 May 1994

 THEATRE

By Melbourne Theatre Company

At (Playhouse Theatre, Melbourne Arts Centre, runs until June 1994

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 135 May 1994

This review was published in The Melbourne Times after 15 May 1994

 

Prohibitive costs ensure we rarely see large casts in productions unless they have toe-tappin' chorus lines, so it is exciting to see Roger Hodgman fill the Playhouse stage with twenty-one actors and musicians in John Galati's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

 

The play has the epic proportions of Steinbeck's novel. It follows the journey of the Joad's, a family of Oklahoma farmers (Okies), to California, land of sun, grapes and work. They have been driven off their leased land like thousands of others in 1938 and seek a new life. Their poor, isolated but peaceful lives are replaced by the deprivation, violation and abuse often afforded refugees.

 

Roger Hodgman has effectively cast quirky, skilful actors including the very funny James Wardlaw. Jeremy Sims is excellent as an intense and brooding Tommy, the eldest son who returns worldly-wise from gaol. The interesting relationship is between Tom and Casey, the lapsed preacher-come-socialist activist, played with sympathy and intelligence by Robert Menzies.

 

Annie Phelan is Ma Joad, the matriarch pivotal to the narrative and family. Her performance is detailed, moving and funny and her pain palpable as she witnesses the disintegration of her family.

 

Tony Tripp's remarkable and simple backcloth leaves space for epic scenes and a vintage car and it is exciting to see characters who are victims of the elements, leaping with abandon into real water. Exceptional lighting by Jamieson Lewis and simplicity of staging by Hodgman serve the story, emphasising the slow dripping away of their livelihood, energy and dignity. Crowd scenes are quite static compositions, but this keeps the focus on central characters.

 

Emotion is withheld in these characters who rarely touch lest they shatter. The emotional and narrative gaps are filled by the extraordinary and evocative live music, which layers the characters and narrative as does an opera score. Gerry Hales and Broderick Smith sing and play innumerable instruments and Smith can act too. Any gaps in the narrative caused by adapting such a huge novel are overcome by the music.

 

You could hear a feather drop as the story escalated to an intensely moving final image. We are left with an overview of a decimated family, a blasted social landscape of abused workers, and poverty of spirit. It is a life-death -life cycle. Out of death rises a phoenix.