‘Of Mice and Men’

Actors’ NET brings the John Steinbeck classic back to the stage.

By: Stuart Duncan
   For the second week in a row, a production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men has opened in the Bucks County, Pa./central New Jersey area. Surely this is a rarity for this 1938 drama, adapted by the author himself from his novella of the previous year. Steinbeck always was more adored by his readers than the critics. In 1993, the school board of a town in Arizona challenged the choice of Of Mice and Men as part of the school curriculum, citing "profane language, moral statements, treatment of the retarded and the violent ending" as faults. The following year, the school superintendent of Putnam County, Tenn., cancelled a staging of the play "due to the language in it." He argued: "We just can’t have this kind of thing being taught."
   Today it is difficult to see what all the fuss was about. Clearly there is more pure violence in multiple episodes of Law & Order or more coarse language in any Howard Stern broadcast, but it is hard to match Steinbeck’s beauty of thought and infinite compassion in his portraits. School boards may always attempt to interpret drama in light of modern-day standards rather than the mores of the time the work was written. For example, Steinbeck used the word "nigger" to describe the stable-boy named Crooks. Through the years that word has been adapted to "nigra," "colored" and so on to today’s "African-American."
   A good cast at Actors’ NET is led by Chuck Donnelly as George and Corey Stradling as Lennie. But it is the smaller roles that give this production its special depth. Marco Newton, probably the hardest-working actor in the area, lays down another superb portrait, this time of Candy, his hand gone from an accident, his pathetic dog taken from him, but still with visions of a bright future in his dreams. Ken Ammerman finds just the right mixture of macho and bravado as Slim, the foreman. Ed Patton is convincing as the Boss; Michael Schiumo is wonderfully sleazy as his son with all the knee-jerk reactions of "a little man." Stephanie Weinstein is completely authentic as his wife, allowing a "roving eye" to substitute for common sense.
   Indeed the play has a violent ending and surely it has profane language. Neither has changed in the 65 years since the work first appeared on the stage. But neither have the questions that Steinbeck laid out for audiences to consider.
Of Mice and Men continues at the Heritage Center, 635 N. Delmorr Ave., Morrisville, Pa., through May 21. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 6 p.m. Tickets cost $15, $13 seniors/children. For information, call (215) 295-3694. On the Web: www.actorsnetbucks.org