Playwright: adapted by Frank Galati from the novel by John Steinbeck At: Infamous Commonwealth Theatre
at the Raven Complex, 6157 N. Clark. Phone: 312-458-9780; $20. Runs through: May 24
Nearly two decades after its premiere, the internationally acclaimed play that established the Steppenwolf ensemble as more than a band of rough-housing kids still leaves big footprints to fill. This is not to dismiss less operatic-scaled productions of John Steinbeck's American classic altogether. Nor is it any disgrace for young artists to bite off more than they can chew, as Infamous Commonwealth Theatre—a troupe renowned for its ambitious projects—appears to have done.
The chief pitfall lies with the play's staging in the smaller of the spaces at the Raven Theatre duplex. Frank Galati's adaptation mandates a story-theater scenic design dominated by a weather-beaten automobile/truck into which thirteen people and their worldly possessions must be laden. Furthermore, this vehicle is to be maneuvered into a variety of positions to indicate passage of time and mileage. But while the vessel designed by Alan Donahue—a member of Lifeline Theatre and thus, no stranger to boat-in-bottle theatrical technology—is a miracle of modular construction, the restrictive dimensions of the playing area impede its mobility, while the bare-floor panorama, with its distressed-burlap walls and flattened light, make it impossible for us to imagine ourselves anywhere but in a—well, off-loop storefront studio.
This classroom ambience could have been mitigated by performances immersing us in our milieu, but Genevieve Thompson's uncharacteristically careless direction not only ignores such useful belief-suspending tools as regional dialects, but elementary details like destitute migrants sporting manicured hands and freshly washed hair. Most debilitating on the night that I attended, however, was the disregard for the music of Steinbeck's language, speech after speech steeped in insightful eloquence glibly recited with a haste and animation ill-suited to what we are to believe are itinerant outcasts enervated by a plethora of forced contemplation.
Even in 2009, Americans still carry in their minds shadows of the Great Depression of the 1930s. ( A rash of advertisements late last year, offering bargains on newly foreclosed homes, was quickly aborted under protest from citizens uneasy at the prospect of exploiting the misfortunes of displaced neighbors. ) A less indifferently mounted rendering of The Grapes Of Wrath could have been Infamous Commonwealth's up-to-the-minute caveat on our current economic troubles instead of a faded reproduction of images still vivid in our memories.
