Word: miceli
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Salinas Valley vagrants. It hasn't any meaning or special significance outside of what appears on the surface. It's just a story. I don't know what it means if anything and I'm damned if I care."--John Steinbeck, 1937, speaking of his first success. Of Mice...
JOHN STEINBECK probably would have cared if he had witnessed Of Mice and Men currently showing at the Loeb Drama Center. Though the play mildly captures a sense of feeling. I never felt I was watching the art of Steinbeck. Edward Zwick, Director, has attempted to day so true to Steinbeck's mere "story" concept that he succeeds in presenting a disconnected production which floats above the surface of any lasting import. Whether or not there is meaning to Of Mice and Men, Zwick fails to move his actors towards the limitless emotion of Steinbeck's characters. Consequently, the Loeb...
UNFORTUNATELY, THE PLAY IS disconnected for two reasons. First, most of the actors obtain their height of perfection too late. Of Mice and Men may have a couple of high points and a dramatic ending to aim for, but Act I and other lesser scenes must display more enthusiasm. The actors' sensitivity or meanness should never falter. The opening dialogue between Lennie and George does not exhibit Steinbeck's intensity (although George's shouting does spark things...
...Mice and Men is an extremely delicate play to direct and I would not totally blame Zwick for the lack of intensity displayed. Rather, I would question Steinbeck and the Loeb for thrusting onto the audience a story so intensely sensitive that almost any production could only fall short of displaying the characters Lennie and George. Perhaps Steinbeck, explained this dilemma best when he wrote of the story as "an experiment in making a play that can be read or a novel that can be played..." The play's emotion comes across in its reading, not its stage performance...
...BEST Chinese wisecrackers is a compact tidbit of Zen that involves two tigers who pursue their helpless victim. Leaving them angrily howling below, he climbs a rope, only to find two mice gnawing through it from above. Represented by chattering dentures extended on long poles, they are about to sever his lifeline, when he spies a strawberry. Seizing and eating it, he reaches a complete enlightenment of Zen, found through the perfection of the fruit, and abandoning his mortal fate with a blissful cry of "Strawberry!", he drops to the waiting tigers below as the stage blacks...