John Steinbeck, chronicler of the Depression-era common man, has created many indelible characters, but few resonate with us with the impact of those odd couple drifters, George Milton and Lennie Small, in Of Mice and Men.
A symbiotic team where most migrant workers are loners, scrappy, parental George is unusually protective of hulking, slow-witted Lennie. For quite accurately he senses that the gentle giant is never far from unintended brute force which stands in the way of their attaining a piece of the American dream.
Finding two towering actors for these central roles is crucial to the success of bringing the literary classic alive, and Palm Beach Dramaworks has a pair of remarkable performers in John Leonard Thompson and Brendan Titley. But almost as crucial is the rest of the company, filling out the migrant farm community, and in that, director J. Barry Lewis has cast well and knit them into a worthy ensemble.
We first meet George and Lennie at a clearing, not far from the farm where they hope to find work and accumulate enough money to get back on their feet. But as pragmatic George admonishes Lennie about his past transgressions, coaching him to remain silent as they get sized up for employment, there is a foreboding sense of inevitability to dark consequences ahead.
Still, like a father to his young charge at bedtime, George and Lennie recite the details of the dream of buying their own place one day, where they can settle down, grow crops and — of paramount interest to the child-like Lennie — raise rabbits.
Returning to Dramaworks as George is Thompson (Candida, American Buffalo, Pitmen Painters), wiry and slight, at least in contrast to Titley’s Lennie. We instinctively see why Lennie is dependent on George, but Thompson makes us see that the need for each other is reciprocal, that George relies on Lennie’s utter belief in their dream to sustain him.
Thompson is the cornerstone of the production, in the less commanding role. Perhaps it is inevitable that Titley draws our attention and wins our affection as feeble-minded, but content Lennie. Making his Dramaworks debut, Titley displays the character’s mental struggles in his facial expressions and draws us inside his head as Lennie grasps for understanding.
While they dominate the evening, what gives the play a richness and period significance is the way the rest of the characters reflect those hard-scrabble times. Long before there was a social safety net, an aged, mangled character like Candy (another fine performance from Dennis Creaghan) knows he has outlived his usefulness and is expendable, just like the decrepit, sway-backed dog he clings to for his solace. Then there’s Crooks, a black man in a racially unenlightened time, relegated to the barn instead of the bunkhouse. But W. Paul Bodie (Master Harold … and the boys) takes him beyond a symbol, investing the character with unexpected dignity.
Also an outcast is alluring Curley’s wife, newly wed to the boss’s son, but already bored with farm life. She has her own pipe dream of Hollywood stardom, but bides her time stirring up the farmhands. Betsy Graver is convincing as trouble from her first cat-like entrance, but she too becomes fully dimensional in a second-act scene sharing her hopes with Lennie. In addition, Lewis draws fine work from Cliff Burgess as foreman Slim, and Frank Converse is a stern presence as The Boss.
With a cast of 10, Of Mice and Men is another stage classic that Dramaworks could never have done justice to in its smaller theater. Certainly, it could not have had the visual impact it has here, thanks to Michael Amico’s versatile unit set of rough-hewn wood and corrugated metal. In a nice touch, he includes two trap doors for a babbling brook and a campfire. The scenic design works well with John Hall’s lighting, particularly the searing shafts of sun and shadow in the barn.
Now in its 14th season, Palm Beach Dramaworks remains on course, serving up tough, occasionally downbeat works from the theatrical shelf. Fortunately, it has developed a following for these plays and it seems to keep getting better at realizing them to their fullest.
OF MICE AND MEN, Palm Beach Dramaworks at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre, 201 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday, Nov. 10. Tickets: $60. Call: (561) 514-4042.