Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men (1937), a play by John Steinbeck. [Music Box Theatre, 207 perf.; NYDCC Award.] Farm laborer Lennie ( Broderick Crawford) is a loving but infantile giant who has often killed pets accidentally with his crushing embrace. His buddy and fellow migrant worker, George ( Wallace Ford), has warned him to be careful, since one day it might not be an animal that he kills. When their boss's sluttish daughter‐in‐law ( Clare Luce) finds Lennie in a barn weeping over a dead puppy, she is sympathetic, so Lennie attempts to embrace her. But she screams and, in a panic, Lennie breaks her neck. George finds out where Lennie has run to hide and shoots him before the other men can get to him. Steinbeck based the play on his own novel, which appeared to have been written with a play in mind. The drama has seen many revivals, including a fine Broadway mounting in 1974 with Kevin Conway and James Earl Jones. The popular novelist John STEINBECK (1902–68) was born in Salinas, California, and educated at Stanford. Of Mice and Men was his first (and only) stage success, although he adapted some of his other stories for the stage, such as The Moon Is Down (1942) and Burning Bright (1950). Rodgers and Hammerstein's short‐lived musical Pipe Dream (1955) was based on Steinbeck's novella Sweet Thursday and his novel East of Eden served as the basis for the equally short‐lived musical Here's Where I Belong (1968).