Cast

Synopsis

In the Californian agricultural belt during the 1930s men sought work wherever they could find it, drifting from ranch to ranch, rootless and ungoverned except by the need to do the work demanded. Steinbeck’s classic tells the story of two such men, friends, one fast talking, wary, the other a child in a man’s body, but both sustained by the dream of one day owning their own place.

Directors Notes

One of the great plays to emanate from America in the 193Os, ‘Of Mice and Men’ is set in Northern California around 1936. The story principally revolves around George and Lennie, two itinerant farm workers. Lennie is a large, strong but simple man, unable to cope with his great strength. George, who has known Lennie from childhood, looks after the big man and tries to protect him from any trouble he might unintentionally find himself in. Thus Lennie needs George and although at times George finds the responsibility more than he wants to cope with he needs Lennie’s companionship in their hard and lonely life. The dream that keeps them going is that one day they will have a place of their own; a little land and some livestock where no-one else is boss’ and they’ll “live off the fat of the land”, What happens to them when they move to their latest job, and the effect they have on the people there, makes for a strong and very moving drama.