Theatre

Grapes of Wrath at the Theatre Royal Plymouth (review)

07th October 2009

John Steinbeck’s angry 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath is on an epic scale - epic in its characters and sweep across a continent, and bitter in its attack on economic exploitation and a harsh capitalist system that, when couple with natural disasters, led to impoverishing and uprooting whole communities.

But most reprehensible is man’s inhumanity to man. Some things haven’t changed much.

The tragic story has sinew and muscle. The Joad family, virtuous Oklahoma sharecroppers, are like thousands of others booted off their parched land, and set off for the promised milk and honey of California.

After a journey plagued by death, heat, hunger and humiliation, they find hostile sheriffs and thugs, and greedy employers paying barely liveable wages to the hundreds of workers contesting for every job.

Simon Higlet provides an eloquent, distorted set that smells of poverty and insecurity, and director Jonathan Church makes telling use of a stream downstage.

Tim Mitchell’s lighting creates moody, shadowy atmospheres, and John Tams haunting songs and folksy music integrate beautifully.

Against such a necessarily fragmented narrative, even linked by brief narrations as here in Frank Galati’s masterly distillation that stays true to the spirit of the book, characters at times seem little more than cyphers.

Outstanding in the cast of over 20 is Sorcha Cusack as compassionate Ma Joad - ever resilient and wise as the hills, a portrayal to treasure.

Christopher Timothy as Pa Joad has less chance to shine but supports selflessly.

Oliver Cotton, contributing a powerful performance as disillusioned preacher Jim Casey who accompanies the Joads, is the mouthpiece for Steinbeck’s unremitting outrage.

Damian O’Hare as virtuous yet tough ex jailbird anti-hero Tom takes up Casey’s standard and becomes labour organiser, and Rebecca Night as Rose is fragile, but epitomises determination and hope in the final tableau as, following the delivery of her stillborn in a torrential storm, she suckles a dying man.

Drama can be grim and gruelling, but it can be uplifting too. Here it even finds shafts of humour. Utterly compelling.

The Grapes of Wrath is at the Theatre Royal Plymouth until October 10.

BILL STONE

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