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Changes to Steinbeck Classic Click

By Michael Toscano

The Washington Post

Thursday, August 7, 2003; Page VA08

There are a few new things in Firebelly Productions' staging of the John Steinbeck classic "Of Mice and Men," but not too many.  After all, if we wanted to see changes, the novel and play wouldn't be called a classic.  Firebelly Productions, a new Arlington theater company, does not credit the stage adaptation, so one assumes it's the version done by Steinbeck, and who wants to mess with the master?

Certainly not director Kathi Gollwitzer, who has seen to it that Steinbeck's familiar themes, if not all the characters, are faithfully reproduced in a well acted study of men and one woman desperately clinging to their dreams.  Her approach is inner-directed, which is appropriate and even necessary in the confining space of Theatre on the Run, but the result is engrossing.

Lennie and George wander the Depression-era California farmland, catching jobs and hoping they will someday have enough of a stake to purchase a small farm and "live off the fat of the land."  Lennie is a gentle giant, with the mind of a child and prone to getting into trouble with his uncontrolled strength.  George, his friend and protector, soothes Lennie with stories of how they will soon spend their days, with Lennie tending rabbits at their homestead.

Just when it seems as though they might actually be able to make their dream reality, trouble sashays through the screen door of the farm bunkhouse in the form of the bored and provocative wife of their mean foreman.  Like "the best-laid plans of mice and men," everybody's dreams are threatened.

There could have been a substantial shift in Steinbeck's story with Gollwitzer's casting of Phillip James Brannon, a black actor, as Lennie.  The tale of a search for home could easily have been subjugated to a study in racial prejudice because Lennie is very much an outsider.

But Gollwitzer maintains the original dialogue and emphasis, except for several uses of the N-word that are aimed at Lennie by the nasty foreman, Curley, but are usually directed at Crooks, a segregated black ranch hand in the novel.  For the play, Gollwitzer makes Crooks Chinese, another minority at the bottom of the melting pot in that time and place, and everything evens out nicely.

More significant is the fact that Brannon is of average size and does not tower over the rest of the cast as required.  Fortunately, he is such an effective, empathetic actor that it is easy to become caught up in his exploration of childlike innocence and dependence and ignore the physical disparity.  Slipping into broad characterization would be easy, but Lennie has several dimensions, and Brannon maintains a subtle and nuanced bearing that allows them to be discerned.

As George, David Cahill displays tough love in a man struggling to keep from dissolving into hopelessness.  Why George stays with the troublesome Lennie is often a mystery in less talented hands, but Cahill makes it clear that having Lennie around allows George to keep his own dreams alive.

Paul Danaceau is a heartbreaking Candy, the broken-down farmhand who has to allow the shooting of his beloved but infirm dog and worries that he's heading for the same fate.  Michael J. Fulvio is a tightly wound bundle of aggression and resentment as Curley. Curley's wife is supposed to be a somewhat hardened bimbo and troublemaker, but Elizabeth Chomko possesses such striking, fresh-faced beauty that the character transforms into an innocent victim.

Gollwitzer's only misstep comes at the play's climax.  Without giving anything away to the few who don't know the tale, let's just say it is often more effective not to actually witness something shocking.  But Firebelly remains a promising addition to area theater.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Cast Fuels Success of Steinbeck Classic

By Matt Reville

The Sun Gazette

Thursday, August 7, 2003

There's no question that John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" has lost a bit of its dramatic oomph since it was written in the 1930s.  Times change, tastes change, audiences change.  Add to that the fact that the plot is headed in one direction, and one direction only, throughout the entire show.  Further add in the fact that it seems to be a perennial of high school English classes a difficult, somewhat forced setting in which to fall in love with literature.

That said, Firebelly Productions new take on the Steinbeck classic is chock full of solid performances, comfortable direction and a smooth pacing that brings the characters to life and adds a touch of comedy to the pathos.

This young troupe last scored with the yukkety-yuk-laden "Lend Me a Tenor."  "Mice" borrows some of the actors from that comedic standout, and also imports some stage veterans several of whom could be seen recently at Signature Theatre's "Follies."  The result is a winning mix.

If you never were directed to read the story in high school, here's a brief plot summary.  "Of Mice and Men" revolves around dim-witted Lennie and his buddy, authoritarian George, two itinerant workers traveling the West in search of a paycheck and, ultimately, the good life.  Unfortunately, their plans are always complicated, as they will be in this two-and-a-half-hour slice of their lives, by Lennie's brute strength and lack of understanding.

Any production of this show is going to live and die with the two main characters.  Fortunately, director Kathi Gollwitzer has hit 14-karat gold in David Cahill (George) and particularly Phillip James Brannon (Lennie), both who bring power and sensitivity to their roles.

Cahill was last seen as the buffoonish Tito Morelli in "Lend Me a Tenor."  From the very beginning of this latest effort, he brings a naturalism to his role.

But the night clearly belongs to Brannon, who has been seen at Little Theatre of Alexandria and elsewhere.  He emphasizes the sensitive nature of his powerful character, making the audience laugh even as they know (or can guess) what is coming.

The secondary cast also is quite good.  I'll single out Chris Carroll as Slim and Paul Danaceau as Candy, two of the ranch-hands, and Elizabeth Chomko, who plays the wife of the son of the ranch boss, a tart who leaves mayhem in her floozyish wake.

But really, there was hardly a laggard performance in the bunch, although the character of Curley, the boss's son and a key to the story line, seems most out-of-date and in need of some fresh dialogue.  Don't blame actor Michael J. Fulvio; he proved his mettle in a previous Firebelly show, and the fault does not lie with him.

Director Gollwitzer takes a focused but slow approach to the unfolding plot, allowing it to work its way through.  The result is that the production moves along just fast enough to keep the audience engaged, although perhaps a tick too slow to build to its big dramatic finale.

Gollwitzer also gets credit for the nicely done set, while all the technical aspects were superb, credit Cahill and Brennan Ballas for sound design, Fulvio for the lights and Jessica Deaton-Crossland for her scenic designs.

Firebelly is a training ground for actors in their late teens and early twenties, augmented by some veterans.  But its performances of late have consistently risen above expectation, as this troupe has proven itself adept at both comedy and tragedy.

The big downside is that this production runs a scant two weeks.  Catch it this weekend, or you'll be left out in the cold.

© 2003 The Sun Gazette

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Firebelly Productions "Of Mice and Men"

Reviewed August, 7 2003

Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Produced by Firebelly Productions

*** Potomac Stages Pick of The Week ***

The pleasures of good, strong, emotionally satisfying live theater can be found in big houses and small at high prices and low, performed by the famous and the relatively unknown.  A case in point is this impressive productions of John Steinbeck's depression-era saga which for $12 ($10 for students and seniors) provides a full evening of absorbing drama featuring two leading performances of note.  It is a project of Firebelly Productions that provides workshops and courses to young adults interested in theater and, here, gives some of them an opportunity to work with more experienced actors and technicians.  This Of Mice and Men, though, bears none of the signs of being an academic exercise, it is thoroughly satisfying theater.

Storyline: Lennie, an infantile giant whose strength makes him dangerous, and George, his protective friend, arrive on a farm in California.  The two migrant workers fled their previous employment after Lennie got into trouble.  They hope to earn enough money to set up their own small farm but the inability of Lennie, in his innocence, to control his impulses lead them back into trouble.

George in this case is David Cahill, who just graduated from American University with a degree in media communications and theater.  He must have studied about the "dramatic arc" of a role, for he takes George for a long, well constructed arc from his early scenes, in which he draws simple pleasure as Lennie's protector and de facto parent, though the painful process of reaching the conclusion that Lennie's defects are unmanageable.  His Lennie is Phillip James Brannon, who is on summer break from The Theatre School at Chicago's DePaul University.  Physically, he isn't big enough to demonstrate the strength which the script says impresses all the other ranch hands, but he imbues the part with a gentle innocence that keeps that from being a distraction.  They make a marvelous pair.

The casting of Brannon puts a different twist on the story because, unlike Lennie in the original story, he is black.  Director Kathi Gollwitzer's approach to this unconventional casting is refreshingly clean and honest.  Rather than the sometimes distracting "color-blind casting" in which the audience is expected not to notice race, she makes racial prejudice against this Lennie part of the story.  The hatred of the ranch owner's son, which is crucial to the plot, is all the more reprehensible because of its racial motivation.  Of course, Steinbeck had already written in a racial discrimination subplot with one ranch hand relegated to the tack house because of race.  Here that disqualifying racial characteristic is that he is Chinese rather than black and, given California's history of discrimination against the people of Asian descent, it makes sense this way.

Gollwitzer has done a fine job making sure that each of the actors on stage is engaged in the reality of the scene.  No one seems on pause, awaiting a cue.  Instead, they all are engaged in the minutia of real life farmhands recuperating from hard work in their limited time off in the bunkhouse.  That bunkhouse is a nicely substantial set designed by Gollwitzer which also bears the marks of the minutia of life, well supplied with canned peaches, worn photographs and a hodge-podge of blankets for the bunks.  The atmosphere is enhanced by an incidental music score that relies on the very appropriate period music of Aaron Copland and less recognizable but equally appropriate musical underscores for scene shifts.  They give a sense of completeness to this atmospheric production in the intimate black box theater just off Four Mile Run Drive.

© 2003 Potomac Stages

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***  Firebelly Productions is supported by Arlington County through the Arlington Commission for the ARTS and the Cultural Affairs Division of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Resources.  ***

Copyright © 2003 Firebelly Productions. All rights reserved. Designed by David Cahill.