“OF MICE AND MEN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1940, Page 9

“OF MICE AND MEN”

MUCH DISCUSSED PLAY. Minerva Theatre is presenting John Steinbeck’s much-discussed play, '’Of Mice and Men,” says a Sydney paper. The play was a great success in New York and London. The film has been banned in Sydney because of its theme, and a murder sequence in which a girl is killed by a half-witted man who is subject to uncontrollable impulses. The book from which film and play were adapted caused a sensation, and critics regarded is as a shrewd and able study of a difficult psychological problem.

. Lennie, the half-wit, is a big man of great physical strength. He is a harmless sort of idiot, but has a perverted passion for soft, tender things.

He likes to fondle mice, and in the rough caress of his huge hands they are crushed to death.

He and his tough hobo friend. George, get a job on a ranch. One afternoon Lennie finds himself alone with Mrs Curley, the wife of the boss's son.

The girl teases him and invites him to stroke her fine, fluffy hair. Lennie

loses control, and when he leaves the girl she is dead. Dramatically, the play is intense and moving. In the Minerva production the part of Lennie is taken by Lloyd Lamble, who was Danny the murderer in “Night Must Fall” in New Zealand. Ron Randell appears as George, and Pat Macdonald is Mrs Curley.