Resource Guide: of Mice &

Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men 1

Sponsored by: The Abe & Anna Bograd Memorial Trust Fund, Herb & Bonnie Buchbinder, Arnold & Carol Caviar, Joyce Chandley, Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, The Karbank Family Foundation, Denise & Scott Slabotsky and the Lewis & Shirley White Donor Advised Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation Of Mice & Men Sources April 11, 16, 18 at 7:30 pm Theatre Works Silicon Valley April 12 at 2 pm | April 19 at 5:30 pm Theatre Calgary New Rep Theatre Rated PG-13 Patty Inglish, MS By John Steinbeck Alley Theatre Directed by Bill Christie

Resource Guide Compiled by Krista Blackwood But little Mouse, you are not alone, Director of Cultural Arts at The J In proving foresight may be vain: Edited by Tracie Holley The best laid schemes of mice and men Art Direction by Hannah Michelson Go often awry, Digital & Social Media Coordinator at The J And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!

Cast Still you are blest, compared with me! George Andy Penn The present only touches you: Lennie Robert J. Hingula But oh! I backward cast my eye, Candy Don Leonard On prospects dreary! The Boss Russ Barker And forward, though I cannot see, Curley Andy Massey I guess and fear! Curley’s Wife Jennifer Coville-Schweigert From the poem “To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Slim Josh Epstein Nest with the Plough” by Robert Burns, 1785 Carlson David Innis Whit Matt Lambird Crooks Zach Lofland Candy’s Dog Bandit

Production Staff Director, Properties Designer Bill Christie Fight Director John Wilson Scenic & Lighting Design Jayson Chandley Resident Costume Designer Julia Ras Sound Designer Alex Davila Stage Manager April Lynn Kobetz Assistant Stage Manager Hunter Hawkins Theatre Production Assistants Adam Hoffman, Meagan Edmonds Technical Director Gregory Chafin Scenic Fabrication Services A to Z Theatrical

Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City Steinbeck’s Literary Experiment

The novel Of Mice and Men Steinbeck deliberately intended to write the story went through several stages of in such a way that it could become a play with little development. Steinbeck took adaptation and then adapted it himself. By doing so, he his time writing drafts because hoped to create a new literary form, one that has since he felt that he needed plenty come to be called the “play-novelette.” of time to tell the story in a way that would not patronize His idea was to combine the forms and create a new or exploit the people he one that would serve both original formats while was writing about. A further bringing something to each. In his mind, “To read an delay occurred when half the objective novel is to see a little play in your head. All manuscript was destroyed by right, why not make it so you can see it on a stage?” Steinbeck’s dog and had to be rewritten. It was not his idea that all novels should be written in this way. This new format was a literary experiment In its early form the book was called Something That intended to allow people to “see the novel” when they Happened, a matter-of-fact title that reflects the story’s might not be able to afford a book or have the skills attempt to simply present characters and events rather to read it. Steinbeck thought this would enhance both than analyzing them. In its early drafts, a prevailing book and the play. theme is that man cannot influence his fate and that there is no ultimate purpose in the individual life or in Interestingly, Steinbeck considered his “experiment” the universe. Like the itinerant ranch hands, mankind (though not the novel) a failure. The play was produced is traveling from nowhere to nowhere. But as the book in 1937 in San Francisco directly from the book but he progressed into what we now know as Of Mice and Men said, “it wouldn’t play; and it wouldn’t play because more “drama of consciousness” enters the proceedings. I had not sufficient experience and knowledge in The characters do not meekly accept a fate they don’t stagecraft.” That problem was solved by director/writer understand, but try to change their own or others’ lives. George S. Kaufman who directed the play’s Broadway debut later that year and who Steinbeck allowed to Between us, I think the novel is painfully dead. I’ve never alter the format to make it stageworthy. The Broadway liked it. I’m going into training to write for the theater, version played 207 performances and won the New York which seems to be waking up. – John Steinbeck Drama Critics Circle Award.

John Steinbeck The first edition of the book Of Mice and Men (left) and an early edition of the play (right).

Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men 3 The Characters Lennie Lennie is a character central to the story, and despite what happens, is the most sweet, sympathetic, and simple of the characters. At the heart of this simplicity is his inability to understand the consequences of his actions, or the power of his own strength. He also has a very poor memory, and little comprehension of the realities of the world in which he lives. But he is mentally challenged, so all of this is simply not in his control. He has a love for touching and petting soft things, is devoted to his friendship to George, and pocesses an unusual physical strength. These characteristics are reinforced each time Lennie is on stage. Steinbeck makes him an endearing character by endowing him with a very vulnerable innocence and an unshakeable commitment to an improbable dream. His innocence elevates him to a level of pure goodness, and George and the audience understand his motivations to be entirely benign. His commitment to the vision of their own farm offers hope in a hopeless world; indeed, his enthusiasm is so infectious that he convinces Candy, Crooks and even George to the possibility of its truth. Sadly, the realities of the time, place, and circumstances are too great an obstacle for Lennie to overcome, and George must make the painful decision to kill Lennie in order to spare him from a worse fate.

George George is as an ordinary man who has an extraordinary sense of morality and responsibility. He offers Lennie both friendship and guardianship. They fulfill each other’s need for companionship. George is the protagonist, as he faces the internal and external conflicts presented in the story. He is practical, sometimes short-tempered but a devoted companion. Despite his complaints about life with Lennie, he never backs away from his role as Lennie’s protector. George is a realist and knows the ways of the world they live, yet has enough sensitivity to know that it is wrong to abuse or exploit those who are weaker than you. George does not shy away from dealing with the issues before him. He is direct in his dismissal of Curley’s wife and willing to stand up to Curley himself. When faced with the ultimate decision about Lennie, George is willing, in spite of his feelings, to do what he believes to be necessary. His experience has given him a tough and gritty exterior but he still believes in the possibility of the dream he shares with Lennie. While George is the creator of the dream and the preserver of it through its retelling, he is a skeptic and knows he cannot survive without Lennie.

Candy Candy is an old man who lost his hand in an accident on the ranch and is employed to clean out the buildings. Candy has an old dog that once was a great sheep herder but has outlived his usefulness. Candy fears the time when he will no longer be useful. He is very attached to his dog. Candy understands the loneliness of migrant farm workers and becomes enchanted by George and Lennie’s dream of owning a farm. He wants to join them and has a little money put aside that he is willing to invest in the dream.

4 Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men The Boss The Boss is the superintendent who runs the ranch for a big land company. He appears only briefly in the play and has a confident manner that most of the men who work for him lack. He is respected by the men who understand his position and see him as “a boss first an’ a nice guy afterwards.”

Slim Slim is a lanky and graceful mule-skinner whose natural confidence and wisdom earn him a quiet respect among the ranch hands. He understands what this kind of work does to a man and respects everyone’s personal boundaries. His wise, easy going and non-judgmental nature encourage the usually gruff and taciturn George to open up to him. He has a dog that just had a litter of pups and he gives one of the pups to Lennie. By the end of the story he becomes George’s confidante and is the only other person that knows the truth about Lennie’s death.

Carlson Carlson is a coarse and insensitive ranch hand who is the exact opposite of Slim. He does not understand the feelings of those around him. He takes life as it comes. Carlson badgers Candy until he reluctantly agrees to let Carlson kill his beloved old dog.

Crooks Crooks is the ‘stable buck’ that looks after the mules. A proud and independent “Negro,” Crooks is named for his crooked body; as a child, he was kicked in the back by a horse. He is an outcast on the ranch because of his race. He is lonely and bitter about the racial discrimination he suffers. He is initially cruel to Lennie suggesting that George may have abandoned him but Lennie and Crooks come to accept each other, and he too becomes swept up by Lennie and George’s dream.

Curley This character is most clearly the villain of the piece. He is an arrogant braggart and bully. Curley is the spoiled son of the boss who likes to pick fights, but only ones that he can easily win. He is manipulative and insecure. He has recently married a beautiful young girl and his behavior as a husband underlines his insecurities.

Curley’s wife Curley’s unnamed wife is an interesting and complex character. After Curley, she presents the most imminent threat to Lennie and George’s well-being. She is initially presented as a provocative “tart” who goes about giving the hired hands “the eye”. In Act III, we discover her to be extremely lonely and trapped in an unsatisfying marriage. She reaches out for companionship amongst the men who work on the ranch, but they reject her. She is a woman and married to the boss’s son – she can’t be their friend. We find that she, too, has a dream that contrasts sharply with her monotonous life on the ranch.

Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men 5 Of Mice and Men is set in the 1930s, right in the middle of the Great Depression. In California, where much of Steinbeck’s work takes place, there were strikes and bloody riots. There was grinding poverty and fear.

October 29, 1929, was the day the stock market crashed—but it was more than just a Wall Street problem.

The bottom dropped out of the economy almost at once. The unemployment rate, only 3 percent in 1925, was 25 percent in 1933. Some 9,000 banks failed across the United States, farm prices dropped by half, the stock market lost 80 percent of its value between 1930 and 1933.

Millions of people were out of work, and some were near starvation. Two men were lynched in San Jose. A group of 150 striking farmworkers were rounded up like cattle in rural Contra Costa County. There was a “red scare” in Salinas, and what looked like revolution in San Francisco.

San Francisco began the decade deep in gloom and ended the decade by throwing a huge party on Treasure Island—an artificial creation built in the bay for the Golden Gate International Exposition. Los Angeles staged a glorious Olympics in 1932. That same year, San Diego, the city where the sun always shines, was the suicide capital of the country.

Thousands of farmers, driven off the land by technological change and the Dust Bowl, settled in towns made of old crates and cardboard, named Hoovervilles for Herbert Hoover, the President of the United States, who kept saying prosperity was “just around the corner.” In Oklahoma City, there was a Hooverville 10 miles long and 10 miles wide.

Transient Workers in the 1930s Top: A family of migrant workers flees from the drought in Oklahoma Transient workers might walk for days at a time without camp by the roadside in Blythe, California, during The Great eating and carrying everything they owned with them. Depression. Above: Portrait shows Florence Thompson with several Some rode inside or on top of freight train cars. Some of her children in a photograph known as “Migrant Mother”. The formed or joined hobo camps. They all had difficulty Library of Congress caption reads: “Destitute pea pickers in California. meeting basic needs: finding food, water and a place Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.” Photos: to sleep, taking baths, cleaning clothes, and finding Dorothea Lange/Getty Images

6 Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men medical care. Sometimes they slept in a tent city or found a work camp that had room for them. They might find occasional short-term work, and few might gain a career. Too often, they were treated as varmints to eliminate and unjustly tagged “dirty, dishonest, and lazy.” Training programs that finally became effective at the middle of the Great Depression provided many of the survivors with necessities and skills for future work.

1931 • January: US Fed reports 4–5 million Americans unemployed • March 31: Davis-Bacon Act states that prevailing wages (union scale) are to be paid on Federal construction contracts from this date forward

1932 • June: Revenue Act of 1932, the largest peacetime tax increase in US history. • July 21st: Emergency Relief and Construction Act and Norris-La Guardia Act protects labor unions from anti- trust suits, private damage suits, and court injunction

1933 • May 12: Agricultural Adjustment Act passed and the United States pays farmers not to grow crops • May 12: Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) • June 6: National Cooperative Employment Service Act • June 16: National Industrial Recovery Act Top: Migrant workers are people who move from place to place to find • November 8: President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates employment. One type of migrant worker is a farmworker. Migrant Civil Works Administration (CWA ) farmworkers are usually newly arrived immigrant or individuals with limited skills or opportunities. Most men travel alone, but they return to a home base in the winter. Home bases are usually in places such 1934 as Florida, Texas, California, Puerto Rica or Mexico. Almost half of • February: Civil Works Emergency Relief Act migrant farmworkers have less than a ninth grade education and speak • August 13: Cartoonist Al Capp begins the “Li’l Abner” little or no English. Above: A family with 11 children, originally from comic strip, which satirizes the Dust Bowl, the Great Mangrum, Oklahoma in an FSA migratory labor camp during pea Depression, and America Federal Surplus Relief harvest. Corporation

1935 1938 • April: Works Progress Administration (WPA) • June 25: Fair Labor Standards Act—national minimum • July: National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) wage law • August: Social Security Act • Supreme Court decides National Labor Relations 1937 Board v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph. Companies may • May: US Economy enters a second depression hire permanent replacements for striking workers • July: Farm Security Agency (FSA) sets up labor camps in an economic strike. Economic recovery would not for migrant farm workers, providing medical care, and begin until the USA declares war on Japan after the helping with job placement. attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men 7 Women and the Great Depression Feminist ideals that had flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century lost momentum in the 1930s. Hard times reinforced traditional family roles, which assumed a male wage earner and a female homemaker. Women were discouraged from pursuing careers so as to not deprive men of work. If they worked outside the home, they typically held female-identified service jobs such as secretaries, teachers, nurses, telephone operators, or housekeepers.

During the Great Depression, a significant number of employers lowered women’s pay. Many New Deal programs offered women only domestic work. Persistent female stereotypes often positioned women at extremes, as either saintly or evil. The saintly woman was pure, submissive, maternal. The evil woman was a temptress: vain, wicked, provocative. Through the eyes of the male characters in Of Mice and Men, Curley’s wife falls into the latter category. The men see her as a dangerous seductress. Early critiques of the novel suggest that Steinbeck portrays Curley’s wife as an Mother and baby of family on the road. Tulelake, Siskiyou County, Eve figure responsible for the exile from paradise. One California, 1939 critic goes so far as to say Steinbeck projects his own hostility toward women on Curley’s wife and makes her sympathetic only in death. For another critic, not even her death evokes sympathy. Even with these changes, the character of Curley’s wife continues to confound. Some critics claim the play’s Recent feminist critiques paint a more complex portrait revisions humanize the character. Others find them of Curley’s wife and of Steinbeck’s attitude toward overly sentimental or unnecessary. Halfway through the her. They point to her isolation and loneliness, her original run of the play, actress Claire Luce expressed desperate attempts to make human contact, and doubt about her theatrical interpretation of Curley’s her own thwarted dreams. Limited by her position in wife. In his 1938 letter to Luce, Steinbeck reveals details relation to the men, she remains an object in life and an about the character that had informed his creation of innocent in death. her. In his mind, Curley’s wife is “not a floozy.” Raised in “an atmosphere of fighting and suspicion,” she “learned At the suggestion of the play’s Broadway director, George to be hard to cover her fright.” The only way to be S. Kaufman, an accomplished playwright in his own noticed, she believes, is to appear “sexually desirable.” right, Steinbeck expanded the role of Curley’s wife when Ultimately, Steinbeck acknowledges that Curley’s wife is he adapted the novel for stage. In Kaufman’s words, “a devil of a hard part”: “The girl, I think, should be drawn more fully: she is the motivating force of the whole thing and should loom “[I]f you knew her, if you could ever break down a larger.” Additional speeches and actions in the play serve thousand little defenses she has built up, you would find to make Curley’s wife more sympathetic (her unfortunate a nice person, an honest person, and you would end up childhood) and more assertive (her plan to escape). by loving her. But such a thing could never happen.”

8 Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men Steinbeck’s writing style mirrors his characters. story it is. Though these characters are working class Steinbeck himself was very well spoken and eloquent, people who don’t have access to big vocabularies but as an author, he writes as the men of his books or grand philosophies, they can still communicate would literally speak. The language of both the play about the things that really matter. This all comes and the book is simple but compelling—just like the through in the dialogue that dominates the book, and characters. Because the language is easy to understand, is only occasionally augmented by the narration. The it’s even more extraordinary that it can carry such lofty narrative style can differ slightly from the simplicity themes, feelings, and ideas. Though the characters of the dialogue (as when the narrator is so effusive in never gush about each other, it’s clear that they describing Slim), but usually even the narration tells feel deeply. Steinbeck achieves this by using simple the most gripping stuff in a straightforward manner. language to build characters who are more than what When George kills Lennie, Steinbeck lets the language they say. For example, while George says he and Lennie be as stark and straightforward as the act, making it just got used to each other, what George is really all the more shocking. Part of Steinbeck’s brilliance is feeling is that their friendship is the only thing he’s this subtle usage of language: when he needs to make ever really had to hold on to. The language, like the words sing, he can, but the action doesn’t seem like it’s men on the ranch, seems simple enough, but it’s more clouded over with poetry. Instead, it just reads like real “still waters run deep” than “OMG you’re my BFF4L.” life. Take a look at the vocabulary words below. These Steinbeck uses his writing style as another means to examples illustrate the kind of terms used by the men suggest that every story is important, no matter whose on the farm:

Bindle: A bundle, usually of bedding and other possessions. “I got three cans of beans in my bindle” Bindle stiff: One who carries his possessions in a bundle, a hobo. “Callin’ us bindle stiffs. You got floozy idears what us guys amounts to.” Booby hatch: An institution for the mentally ill. “They’ll take you to the booby hatch.” Bucking bags: Throwing heavy burlap bags of grain into a truck or wagon. “I seen thrashing machines on the way down; that means we’ll be buckin’ grain bags.” Buckshot: Scattershot, as from a gun, here used figuratively. “These tarts is jus’ buckshot to a guy.” Euchre: A type of card game. “Anybody like to play a little euchre?” Giving the eye: To look at another person with obvious admiration; to ogle, to flirt. “Well, I seen her give Slim the eye.” Handy: Skillful with the hands, dexterous, wieldy; in this case, skilled in a fight. “Curley’s pretty handy. He done quite a bit in the ring.” Jack: Money. “We don’t have to sit in no barroom blowin’ in our jack, just because we got no place else to go.” Lulu: Any remarkable or outstanding person or thing. “Well, ain’t she a lulu?” Pants rabbits/Pillow-pigeons: Lice. “What the hell kinda beds you givin’ us anyway? We don’t want no pants rabbits.” Poke: A wallet or purse; in this case, figurative for stored away. “If we can get just a few dollars in the poke we’ll shove off.” Tart: A promiscuous or flirtatious woman. “I think Curley’s married himself a tart.” Skinner: A mule driver. “You a jerk-line skinner?” “I can snap ‘em around a little.” Slough: To get rid of; in this case, to fire. “Don’t tell Curley I said none of this. He’d slough me!” Stable buck: The man responsible for taking care of the horses. “He give the stable buck hell too.” Stake: Money savings. “I wanted we should get a little stake together. Maybe a hundred dollars.” Swamper: Here, a general handyman and person responsible for cleaning out the barn or bunkhouse. “I jest now finished swamping out the washhouse”

Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men 9 How does seeing Of Mice and Men as a play compare to your other experiences of the story?

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Could events like the ones presented in the play occur today?

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The play was originally produced in 1937. What has changed since then? How have things remained the same?

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What is the dramatic turning point of the play? Describe the moment and your reaction to it.

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10 Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men Describe the bond between George and Lennie. What sort of things do the two actors do to reveal their relationship?

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Who else besides Lennie could be responsible for the death of Curley’s wife?

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Why is Lennie “simple-minded” and “slow”? What might have happened to him to cause it?

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Why does Lennie die? What might have happened to him if George had not killed him?

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Resource Guide: Of Mice & Men 11