How to stage John Steinbeck's white folks' consciousness for the modern audience
On the National Theatre adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath
I read The Grapes of Wrath for my master’s and found it incredibly inspiring, both as a socio-historical text and a literary work. It follows the Joads, an Oklahoman sharecropper family driven off their land after poor harvests caused by the Dust Bowl (a series of dust storms in the 1930s). Holding bills advertising good jobs in California, the family heads west, losing members along the way to illness and disillusionment. When they finally reach their destination, they find themselves competing for work with hundreds of thousands like them, shuffled between plantations and orchards as second-class citizens, barely earning enough to survive.
Tom Joad, the second son and protagonist of the novel, is forced to run after accidentally killing a hired thug of a ranch owner. The family continues to drift on. Rose of Sharon, the oldest daughter, who had been pregnant throughout the story, gives birth to a stillborn baby after suffering from malnutrition and overwork. The novel ends with a somewhat strange scene in which Rose of Sharon breastfeeds a starving, dying man who is sheltering in the same barn during a storm.
I was extremely excited when I heard about the National Theatre adaptation (based on Frank Galati’s 1988 script). So many aspects of the novel seemed perfect for the stage, such as the distinctive characters with strong personalities and the dramatic yet realistic dialogue. However, other elements posed challenges, including the detailed landscape descriptions, the nitty-gritty of migrant labourers’ lives, the collective voice used in the controversial inter-chapters, and the long-drawn road journey that takes up two-thirds of the book. More importantly, given that John Steinbeck held some views that are conservative and problematic by modern standards (you probably sensed this during the breastfeeding scene), I was curious to see how the play would present this 1930s text to a modern audience.
I wanted to evaluate the play on two levels: (1) Is it a faithful reproduction of the story, and does the theatrical adaptation add anything that the novel alone cannot convey? (2) Does it address the author’s prejudices inherent in the novel?
Unfortunately, the National Theatre adaptation was disappointing on both fronts. My criticism lies mainly with the script and direction, not the acting—I’m no expert on acting, but I felt the cast did a good job, and some scenes were genuinely moving.
Is it a faithful reproduction of the story, and does the theatrical rendering add anything that pure literal texts are unable to convey?
The play is a faithful reproduction of the story in terms of plot, but not in spirit. It attempts to cram all the major scenes into two and a half hours, which, as a Guardian review aptly noted, results in “little building of tension” and leaves the audience wishing “for more intimacy, and simply for more to happen.”
The play fails to capture John Steinbeck’s journalistic spirit and political advocacy, which, in my opinion, are the essence of the book. Steinbeck had personally followed Dust Bowl migrants on their journey and even wrote a non-fiction work on the same topic, The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to The Grapes of Wrath. This first-hand experience allowed him to provide detailed accounts of the tools used to maximize truck capacity, the methods for feeding children with limited resources, and the appalling practices that exploited the surplus value of labour. These details ground the story firmly in its historical context.
The play includes few of these elements, making the scenes about the laborers’ plight feel stereotypical and overly sentimental (Steinbeck’s novel has already been criticized for its sentimentality). The play reduces the story to a simplified narrative of “here are some poor laborers, they are so oppressed, yet love and family keep them going," while the novel itself delves into the specific mechanisms of exploitation and suggests an alternative future through the portrayal of the self-governing migrants’ camp, Weedpatch.
A major disappointment of the play is that it spends too little time in Weedpatch. The camp is briefly depicted as a nice place where people are kind, facilities are good, the kids enjoy the showering amenities, they have a party, and then the Joads leave. In the book, however, we learn about the self-governing committee, how they successfully thwarted a riot scheme designed to give local police (who sided with business owners and hated seeing laborers organised) an excuse to storm the camp. The novel shows the Joads' struggle to stay in Weedpatch, but ultimately they are forced to leave when local work dries up. The whole Weedpatch episode isn't just a cheerful respite in the middle of a grueling journey; it's a thoughtful reflection on the possibility of utopia and the challenges we must overcome to achieve it.
The 1940 film adaptation does a much better job of capturing this spirit. Nearly 30 minutes of the 130-minute film are set in the camp. More notably, the film changes the order of events, making Weedpatch the last major scene. While both the novel and the play end with Rose of Sharon, in a Virgin Mary-like role, nurturing a dying man, emphasizing the idea that “Man, he lives in the jerks… Woman, it’s all one flow… it goes right on,” and placing the weight of resilience on women as self-sacrificing figures, the film takes a different approach. It omits the breastfeeding scene entirely, instead concluding with the Joads reluctantly leaving Weedpatch. Ma Joad still delivers her “Woman is all one flow” speech, but by placing it after the Weedpatch episode, the focus shifts from female resilience to the resilience of the working class as a whole. This, in my opinion, is an instance where creative adaptation transcends the original text.
The play also fails to capture the burgeoning class consciousness present in the novel. Steinbeck uses the inter-chapters to convey a collective voice, running parallel to the main plotline. If you haven’t read the book, here’s a quote that might give you a sense of their tone and purpose.
They(the migrants) had no argument, no system, nothing but their numbers and their needs. When there was work for a man, ten men fought it—fought with a low wage. If that fella’ll work for thirty cents, I’ll work for twenty five.
If he’ll take twenty-five, I’ll do it for twenty.
No, me, I’m hungry. I’ll work for fifteen. I’ll work for food. The kids. [...]
And this was good, for wages went down and prices stayed up...
Neither the play nor the film could replicate the novel's powerful collective voice, which blends the emotional resonance of fiction, the realism of non-fiction, and the sharpness of political commentary. The play does attempt to forge a collective voice by integrating a five-piece band into the drama, but, as the same Guardian review points out, it “brings yet more stilled atmosphere above action.” Perhaps only something like the choir in Les Misérables could effectively capture the impact of Steinbeck’s inter-chapters.
What a stage performance can achieve, that a novel cannot, is likely the level of intimate humanity it brings to the characters. Unfortunately, the play rushes through so many scenes that the characters never quite feel as real and fleshed out as they do in the book. Many dialogues that should have been handled with subtlety are instead presented melodramatically, with excessive shouting, panting, and crying. This is especially true of the iconic “I’ll be there” speech by Tom Joad before he goes on the run. I want to share the quote here so you can feel it for yourself. These lines should be delivered quietly, with a mix of despair, yearning, and strength—not yelled in anger and confusion.
Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be everywhere — wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’ — I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build–why, I’ll be there. See?
Does it address the author’s prejudices inherent in the novel?
The play makes a visible attempt to be more inclusive than the novel. In The Grapes of Wrath, all the main characters are white (the Joad family members, including Rose of Sharon’s husband, Connie, and the preacher, Jim Casy, who travel to California with them). In contrast, the play casts as many non-white actors as possible outside the core Joad family. Connie is black, Casy is black, and many of the fellow laborers the Joads encounter are also portrayed by black actors. While this casting choice is commendable in terms of giving more opportunities to non-white actors, I am concerned it might mislead audiences unfamiliar with the novel into believing Steinbeck was a champion of racial equality. In reality, white farmers in 1930s Oklahoma did not casually interact or marry black people, and Steinbeck certainly didn’t endorse such ideas.
While The Grapes of Wrath doesn’t explicitly endorse racism, Steinbeck does justify white farmers’ entitlement to the land, citing their violent history “Grampa killed Indians” (The Grapes of Wrath, p.39). In The Harvest Gypsies, Steinbeck also emphasizes that these farmers “ain’t foreign”- they were “several generations back Americans, beyond that Irish, Scotch, English, German” (The Grapes of Wrath, p.274), reflecting a Jeffersonian view of American identity, rooted in white farming families as the backbone of the country.
This raises a key question: how should we address the inherent prejudices in older texts when presenting them to modern audiences? I don’t claim to have a definitive answer, but something I learned from Jennifer Dick, associate director of Bard in the Botanics, may provide a framework for discussion.
In a workshop with Jennifer, I asked about her views on the diverse casting in The Rings of Power, which had been attacked by some keyboard warriors. She answered the question with a question: “Is the story about race?” In the case of The Lord of the Rings, which explores themes of courage, power, fate, and mortality, the racial diversity of the characters doesn’t really affect the story. We don’t need to adhere to Tolkien’s aesthetics from a century ago—elves can simply be black. On the other hand, racial difference plays a central role in some stories, like Othello, where Othello is treated differently because he is dark skinned. Does this mean everyone should be cast white, with Othello standing out as the sole black character? Not necessarily—the point is to reflect Othello’s difference, and that can also be done by casting Othello as the only white character.
The Grapes of Wrath is more ambivalent. While racial difference isn’t a central theme, the inherent racial prejudice is key to the American identity Steinbeck constructs. In this case, there seem to be two possible approaches:
(1) Completely ignore racial prejudice and opt for colour-blind casting, with the core Joad family members being portrayed by actors of different ethnicities, as seen in the Hamilton musical. This approach would focus entirely on the class struggle, removing race as a complicating factor.
(2) Highlight Steinbeck’s racial prejudices, making them even more explicit than in the novel, and weave critical commentary subtly into the play. This would deepen the audience’s understanding of the novel’s limitations and strengths. However, the challenge with this approach is that it may require an entirely white cast to reflect the racial dynamics of the time, which could limit opportunities for non-white actors.
Of course, things are easier said than done. Perhaps this is the speculation of an armchair expert, but I hope I’ve raised some interesting points for discussion. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.
Citation:
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. Penguin Books, 1992
*Apologies for the missing citations - I don’t have access to the same book I used when I wrote my essay. I will add them when I get the chance.