GRAPES OF WRATH at Chichester Festival Theatre

A great, if slightly harrowing night out in Chichester Festival Theatre,West Sussex.

Jonathan Church, who runs this wonderful theatre tucked in the south downs, has taken a ambitious look at the classic Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath, and considering the present climate of the the recession we are in now it seems like a very bold step to take. The Frank Galati adaptation is a powerful piece, its is full of despair and poverty and yet there always seems a thread of hope coming from Ma Joad, skillfully played by Sorcha Cusack, she has optimism throughout every rotten thing that’s thrown at the Joad family.

Pushed off their land they are making a 2,000 odd mile journey across the states in an already worn out jalopy to find work and almost more important their dignity.
Pa Joad  (perhaps is  more realistic than Ma),  is powerfully played by Christopher Timothy, he takes us every step of the way, feeling his pain and disillusionment with man’s inhumanity toward each other.

There are deaths, desert, dust, downpours and destitution on the way to the promised land. Do they make it? well you must go to Chichester to find out.

The set,  lighting and all the tricks! …say no more don’t want to spoil it… and a great cast are most certainly worth seeing

 

Runs from July 27th – August 28th in rep with Oklahoma

 

 

  

 

Images curtasy of MANUEL HARLA