Back in 1988, Steppenwolf Theatre premiered an expensive, AT&T-sponsored stage version of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, adapted and directed by Frank Galati. In my review I argued that the show sabotaged itself, mainly through the absurd juxtaposition of a socialist novel with megacorporate funding, but also by forcing the audience to “sit there and wait to be impressed by all the gimmicks that $500,000 buys. The real river and the genuine car, the honest-to-God rainstorm and the burn-your-fingers campfires. That car, especially—moved around and spun this way and that from scene to scene—is a great and unnecessary burden.”
One Joad, Tom, takes his own, personal journey even as he accompanies the others on theirs. Merciless exploiters and vicious enforcers, fiery unionizers and brief glimpses of a better way combine to radicalize Tom, both socially and spiritually. The saga is as ennobling as it is agonizing. It’s also full of contemporary resonances. You can’t watch the Joads get turned from self-sufficient farmers into despised “migrants” without thinking of bans on Muslims and walls along the Rio Grande. You can’t listen to talk about “one fella with a million acres” amid a million others with none without thinking about the wealth gap. And if you can sit through the passages about foreclosed family homes without thinking of the mortgage crisis, then just take an intermission-time stroll down to the realty office a block from the theater, where the listings posted in the window include a couple for “bank-owned” condos.
Through 8/14: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, the Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee, 773-283-7071, thegifttheatre.org, $35.
