The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck adapted by Frank Galati
Nuffield, Northampton, Nottingham and West Yorkshire Playhouse (2017)
Directed by Abbey Wright
Lighting design by Nigel Edwards
Photography by
The frames of two containers – a prefabricated solution providing shelter in many refugee camps today – are the architecture on which this classic story is hung. The story is told in gig form, with the containers providing the stage for the band.
As the Joads near the end of their journey, the two frames fit together to create the classic box-car of Hooverville, used to house migrants of the American dust bowl in the 1930s.
“Wright’s production has an impressive sense of scale and a brutally modern aesthetic […] at its finest it is stirringly ugly-beautiful, with the hypnotic quality of a fever dream […] that tackles a classic with courage, freshness and verve.”
The Times