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The Grapes of Wrath...
The Festival Theater has again proven that there is a great deal of artistic talent out there.
The Grapes of Wrath is an American "realist" play based on a novel written by John Steinbeck - often regarded as the most illustrious American writer (although Hemingway fans like me will give an argument about that) that was published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.
It is a story about what could become anyone's story of what it might be like to be cast out from your home into the great wasteland... a journey of survival and wandering through life in search of security and dignity after being nearly crushed by financial hardship. Set during the Great Depression, it is as real today as it was then. The novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future for their children.
One of the lessons it seems that director Jackie Johnson wants a viewer to learn here is that what counts most in life and endures through hardship is the sense of belonging to one's family and how that can boost resiliency to the onslaught of forces that do not simply want to defeat you, but punish you along the way. The actors in this performance convey that strongly, and one can feel the closeness the cast feels for one another throughout. They seem to not to have to work hard to achieve that. It instills hope when one feels it.
RPW
The Grapes of Wrath is an American "realist" play based on a novel written by John Steinbeck - often regarded as the most illustrious American writer (although Hemingway fans like me will give an argument about that) that was published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.
It is a story about what could become anyone's story of what it might be like to be cast out from your home into the great wasteland... a journey of survival and wandering through life in search of security and dignity after being nearly crushed by financial hardship. Set during the Great Depression, it is as real today as it was then. The novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future for their children.
One of the lessons it seems that director Jackie Johnson wants a viewer to learn here is that what counts most in life and endures through hardship is the sense of belonging to one's family and how that can boost resiliency to the onslaught of forces that do not simply want to defeat you, but punish you along the way. The actors in this performance convey that strongly, and one can feel the closeness the cast feels for one another throughout. They seem to not to have to work hard to achieve that. It instills hope when one feels it.
RPW