‘Of Mice and Men’ at the Long Beach Playhouse

If you’re a product of American secondary education, you’ve likely encountered John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men and, perhaps to avoid reading the novel, at least one film version of the book. While some of us can remember only that dumb, hulking Lennie can’t stop himself from unintentionally killing all God’s creatures (mice, a dog, a woman) and so must be put down by protective George, we all know the story is an American classic. The problem is in the play itself, and there’s nothing Long Beach Playhouse can do about that.

The script is Steinbeck’s own 1950 adaptation of his Depression-era novel—and, well, there’s just no nice way to say it: his script is bad. Awful. I don’t recall the book well enough to know if Steinbeck is a competent prosodist, but here it seems the man couldn’t even transcribe real-life dialogue, never mind create it. Half the time the characters appear to have little cognizance of what the others are saying, instead going off on some dreamy tangent meant to emphasize (and emphasize and emphasize) one of a small fascicle of leitmotifs or character quirks: the sufferings of the lonely, Lennie’s good nature and desire to “tend the rabbits,” the mirage of a better place just down the road. “I been calculatin’,” says one-handed Candy a good half-dozen times; “We gotta get a stake,” says George too often to calculate. This in a play that takes place over only 72 hours.

The poor writing leads to a complete failure of intent. The most pointed example occurs near the play’s conclusion, just after Lennie has (more or less) accidentally broken the neck of the Boss’s daughter-in-law—an act that falls hard upon his (more or less) accidental crushing of a puppy’s skull. Knowing he must flee as he stoops over his victims, he scoops up the canine carcass, telling himself that he better remove it so George won’t be even more angry than he’s going to be already—and the audience damn near roared with laughter. It’s not funny, and it’s not meant to be; but just as jokes can be unfunny, tragedy can be rendered trite.

OF MICE AND MEN LONG BEACH PLAYHOUSE // 5021 E ANAHEIM BLVD // LONG BEACH 90804 562.494.1014 // FRI-SAT 8PM, SUN 2PM // $10-18 // THROUGH AUG 2

Tags: crappy script, grapes of wrath, Long Beach, of mice and men, steinbeck