Bitter Fruit - Different But Still Challenging

John Steinbeck's social reality novel, The Grapes of Wrath, provoked national outrage when it was first published in 1939, as a partial response to the out-of-control capitalism that displaced thousands of 'Okies', and led to one of the largest people migrations the world has ever known.

It pricked the national conscience, selling 450,000 copies in its first year, as one senator branded it 'a black infernal creation of a twisted mind', and a newspaper sarcastically labelled its 37-year-old author, Comrade Steinbeck.

Fifteen million copies later its harshest critics are dead, Steinbeck snuggles up to his Pulitzer prize, in the world beyond, and a book remains that continues to speak to humanity at so many levels.

Frank Galati had the unenviable task of distilling this 140,000-word novel into something resembling a two-hour stage play, which opened at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last night.

I had wanted to see this production for some time but left the theatre with mixed emotions, some provoked by the play, others by disappointment with the production.

The scenery was, at best, sparse, which I can certainly buy into because life in the Oklahoma dustbowl was frugal, however, the modern dress community chorus did little for me. It was designed to act as a 'bridge' between 'then' and 'now' but, most would have made the connection between America's great Californian migration of the 30's, with everything that is happening in Europe now. A chorus in traditional costume, fair enough, but leggings, training shoes and tweed jackets? Not for me.

The production would have been no worse off without its sprawling chorus and, musically, I wanted Woodie Guthrie, the great musical commentator of 1930's America, not electric instruments; a more traditional sound evocative of the time under scrutiny perhaps.

The Grapes of Wrath is powerful stuff. It is set in the dustbowl and Great Depression of 1930's America. Drought and over farming has led to crop failures, bank foreclosures force tenant farmers out of work, and thousands of families find themselves in a near hopeless situation.

The Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers, begin their painstaking journey to California in the hope of a better life but, en-route, are met with discrimination, starvation, death and hostility from police, authority figures and the haves, reluctant to share with the have nots. Sound familiar? They rapidly become 'them', those that we always want to send back! Displaced farmers, suddenly wasters and hobos through no fault of their own.

Brendan Charleson was Casy, the disillusioned preacher, Charlie Folorunsho as Pa, Andre Squire as his son, Tom and Julia Swift as Ma. Collectively they were real anchors on stage, driving the play forward. Ma was the strong woman desperately trying to keep the family together but, as the situation worsens, there is the pitiful situation as Rose of Sharon is forced to give her breast milk to a starving man after her child is still born.

The principal performances were seamless but occasionally, there were a few English regional accents creeping in on stage. Nevertheless, there were some strong performances and, whatever your political credentials, you would be hard pushed not to be moved by this production.

The Grapes of Wrath is still a book, and a play, for our time because it is about humanity. It is about the haves and the have nots, conscience versus blind eye syndrome.

Watch this play and you will have to think long and hard before shouting at the TV: "We should send them back, we can't take any more in the UK."

Challenging but worthy of a visit.

The Grapes of Wrath
At West Yorkshire Playhouse
Until Saturday June 10th