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Different mice, same men

Lesser characters carry tragic torches in Steinbeck classic

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 8, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Louis Schaefer plays the downtrodden farmhand Candy with a new depth in the Arvada Center production Of Mice and Men.

Photo by P. Switzer

Louis Schaefer plays the downtrodden farmhand Candy with a new depth in the Arvada Center production Of Mice and Men.

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With a familiar tale, sometimes the biggest gift a new production gives is taking a lesser character and casting him in a new light.

In the Arvada Center production of Of Mice and Men, directed by Terry Dodd, the most moving moments come not from George and Lennie - although the climax is, as always, crushing - but from Candy, a beaten old farmhand given life and pathos by Louis Schaefer.

Schaefer offers us a friendly spinner of stories who sees all but doesn't have much strength left for himself. When he surrenders his sickly old dog for a questionably merciful shot to the back of the head, his reaction - curling into the fetal position on his cot - is like pins in the heart.

His dreams of staking George and Lennie to a simple farm so he'll have somewhere to grow old are even sadder. Because this is John Steinbeck country. And in Steinbeck country, even the most modest dreams are denied.

George and Lennie are, of course, Steinbeck's classic depiction of friendship. Lennie, as played by Patrick Brennan, is the quintessential gentle giant. His speech and manner are those of a 4-year-old boy, but he's in the body of an enormously strong man with little impulse control. Brennan makes him sweet and confused, yet it's easy to see why George gets so frustrated with him.

Kent Burnham's George begins the play in a pique of that frustration. Initially, Burnham plays the man on the surface, every emotion clearly delineated and too obvious. By the second act, it's a far more nuanced performance.

Supporting actors make this a true ensemble production. Mark Rubald is an honest picture of Slim, the earthy, decent farmhand, and James Nantz has a nice scene as the gregarious Whit. C. Kelly Leo shows that Curley's Wife (and what a sad world where that's your name) is far more lonely than she is tart.

Brian Mallgrave's set beautifully frames a cutaway wood bunkhouse with the creek on one side and the shunned black stable hand Crooks' room on the other.

Steve Stevens' sound design is lush with birds and water, but offstage sounds of a horseshoe game become distracting in a fraught scene.

The tale is a beautiful one, of friendship and pain and unpleasant choices. The production serves it well, if not spectacularly.

Of Mice and Men

* Grade: B

* When and where: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 1 p.m. Wednesdays, through March 9, Arvada Center, 6901 Wads- worth Blvd.

* Cost: $23 and up

* Information: 720-898-7200