Of Mice And Men

Simply Amazing!
James Franco and Chris O’Dowd with leave your breathless.
I had not read the book but the acting and set creation was fantastic!

Excellent actors! Bravo!

John Steinbeck’s required-​reading novella is permanently etched in a lot of our minds as the ultimate bromance and as a paean to lost dreams driven by stark loneliness and the hopelessness brought forth by the Great Depression when it was first published in 1937. I remember how Miss Keane, my effusive drama teacher in middle school, wanted me to play Crooks, the hunched-​over black stable-​hand, because frankly I was the only minority member in my class in Dallas. Seriously. I was too self-​conscious to do it when I was 12, but watching the play all these years later made me wonder if I could have grasped the quietly seething bitterness that Ron Cephas Jones brings to the secondary role.
As you probably recall from your English class, this is really the story of George, the frustrated dreamer, and Lennie, the gentle giant, and how they dream about owning a piece of land where Lennie can tend to soft rabbits. First, however, they need to make their way through jobs that George has secured for them as ranch hands near Soledad and make sure that Lennie doesn’t inadvertently cause trouble with his hulking strength like he did in their last jobs in Weed. Trouble comes soon enough with the Boss’ aggressive, small-​statured son Curley who hates Lennie just for being big, and complications increase with the appearance of Curley’s wife, a lonely, young woman who wants to leave her loveless marriage. The play keeps the narrow focus of Steinbeck’s story through the inevitable conclusion.
Director Anna D. Shapiro’s staging at the tightly packed Longacre Theater is sparse but dramatically effective with the deep shadows and sound effects helping to evoke the menacing situation that unfolds. The real surprise here is Chris O’Dowd’s touching performance as Lennie. Usually a lumbering turn for anyone who takes it on, the lanky actor hunches over and brings a level of unexpected delicacy to the character whether it’s the fluttery gestures he uses with his left hand to express his longing or the goofy naïveté when he repeatedly asks George to tell him about their fantasy homestead. James Franco has the tougher role as George because he has to let his character’s anger mask his obvious codependency on Lennie, but he does a better job than you would expect, especially as the story evolves into a series of desperate acts.
Other actors are effective in the smaller roles, in particular, Jones as Crooks in a showy scene with O’Dowd that opens Act II; Jim Parrack as Slim, the only one of the hands who truly gets the bond between George and Lennie, and Jim Norton as old-​timer Candy who wants to grab on tight to George and Lennie’s dream after having to give away his aged dog to Curley for him to kill offstage, a heartbreaking moment of endless anticipation. The one marginal disappointment is Leighton Meester who may have the play’s most challenging role as Curley’s wife, a character with no name who wavers between temptress and victim. There’s a constant uncertainty in her performance that sometimes works to her advantage. The play unfortunately closes on July 27 after an 18-​week run, but I’m hopeful someone is capturing it on video for posterity. O’Dowd’s performance is that good.