A Dusty Retelling of ‘Mice and Men’

At this point in their lives, George and Lennie--the touchingly mismatched migrant workers of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”--need more of a hand than they’re getting in the new South Coast Repertory production.

Director David Emmes’ staging hits its marks and tells the story. But it’s like a theatrical book report on a well-worn book. No American standard, especially a not-quite-a-classic classic, benefits from this brand of dogged reverence.

Since 1937, Steinbeck’s itinerants have traveled from high school reading list to reading list, from community stage to regional theater. Steinbeck conceived of his short, simple, bluntly symbolic work as a “play-novelette.” He was thinking “synergy” long before anyone actually (and unfortunately) used such a word.

The same year it was published, Steinbeck adapted “Of Mice and Men” for Broadway, aided by the savvy doctoring hand of director George S. Kaufman. The play works in the way the novella works, in the way the 1939 Lewis Milestone film version works. (The 1992 Gary Sinise film remake works less well; it’s so pretty, the scenery crowds all the hardship.) Your heartstrings get played like a fiddle by Steinbeck’s rural fable, even if the author’s relentless dramatic foreshadowing verges on five- and six-shadowing.

On the run from Weed, Calif., where things didn’t work out, the mildly retarded Lennie (Jefferson Breland) and his protector, George (Jonathan Fuller), land on a ranch. The job: heaving barley bags 11 hours a day. The pipe dream: squirrel away enough jack for George and Lennie to buy a farm of their own. “Gonna live off the fat of the land,” Lennie says, when he’s not obsessing over his beloved rabbits.

The author knew his territory, and he knew how to translate it to the stuff of effective melodrama. Lennie remains an archetypal figure, a sweet-natured giant who doesn’t know his own strength, leaving a trail of dead mice, a dead puppy and a dead “tart” (April Crowell) in his uncomprehending wake. The mercy killing of a dog owned by ranch hand Candy (Richard Doyle) parallels, tidily, George’s climactic killing of his friend.

Steinbeck treated the world of the agricultural labor camp as an emblem of America’s hypocrisy. “The migrants are needed, and they are hated,” he wrote in a 1936 newspaper feature. New times, same old story. Not for nothing does “Of Mice and Men” retain its ability, at this end of the century, to grab younger readers and theatergoers, in particular.

Director Emmes paces the scenes steadily, gravely, to the point of enervation. They lack conversational ebb and flow; the material doesn’t need hyping, but with Steinbeck laying out every theme and variation so plainly, an audience doesn’t require the same in performance.

There’s a pretty good George from Fuller (very Sinise-like in the vocal inflection, a little bumpy with his lines Saturday night), and a pretty good Lennie from Breland. No surprises on either count. As Candy, South Coast Repertory regular Doyle comes through with an affecting reminiscence of his long-ago visit to a whorehouse.

Two supporting performances stand out largely by not trying to: Doug Tompos’ sympathetic, low-keyed Slim, and Abdul Salaam El Razzac’s Crooks, a shrewdly judged blend of warmth and mistrust. Neither actor treats Steinbeck’s writing like gold. Whether you consider “Of Mice and Men” gold or a lesser metal, on stage it’s better off not being treated that way.

*

“Of Mice and Men,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends April 4. $18-$45. (714) 708-5555. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

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Of Mice an Men

Jonathan Fuller: George

Jefferson Breland: Lennie

Richard Doyle: Candy

Doug Tompos: Slim

Rudy Young: Curly

April Crowell: Curly’s wife

Abdul Salaam El Razzac: Crooks

Art Koustik: The Boss

Steve Mattila: Carlson

David Whalen: Whit

Written by John Steinbeck. Directed by David Emmes. Set by Neil Peter Jampolis. Costumes by Susan Denison Geller. Lighting by Tom Ruzika. Composer: Dennis McCarthy. Sound: B.C. Keller. Fight director: Ken Merckx.