Not many feats of literary stamina match John Steinbeck's composition of the main body of The Grapes of Wrath in little over four months. But Tim Baker's adaptation of it in less than six weeks runs it close.
With no workable adaptation of the novel available, director Baker undertook his own version by emulating the novelist's creative warp-speed. Yet perhaps such sheer urgency is the key to the production's success.
The great challenge of The Grapes of Wrath is not so much its length as its breadth. Steinbeck casts every episode of this dust-bowl exodus in wide-screen, and Baker, aided by the evocative expanses of Max Jones's set, stays faithful to the novel's panoramic vision, while never forfeiting a sense of momentum.
This is no mean feat given a core of characters for whom things begin badly and get steadily worse. The Joad family abandon the parched plains of Oklahoma for the plenitude of California, losing grandma, grandpa and most of their illusions on the way.
There are moments when the characters' cries of "we gotta find work" sound less like a desperate mantra than a statement of the obvious. Yet despite the unremitting hardship, the production sings in the bold cadences of a hymn to human tenacity.
There are many outstanding individual performances, but the fact that the actors are listed as an ensemble emphasises that this is a group achievement. The communal spirit is well reflected in the stirring, multi-part bluegrass harmonies and in Tom Joad's suggestion that "maybe a man don't have an individual soul, just part of a bigger one".
The great merit of this production is that it presents many vividly realised pictures, yet never loses sight of the bigger one.
· Until October 7. Box office: 0845 330 3565.
