6 September 2024

The National Theatre’s The Grapes of Wrath does the novel justice

Theatre cannot recreate the characterless vignettes John Steinbeck called his “generals”, but compensates with atmosphere.

By George Monaghan

Harry Treadaway (Tom Joad) and Cherry Jones (Ma Joad) in The Grapes of Wrath at the National Theatre. Photo by Richard Hubert Smith

A great American novel on a great British stage. The Grapes of Wrath is currently on at the National Theatre, and not for the first time: the same Frank Galati adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel was shown on the same Lyttleton stage in 1989. Now Carrie Cracknell directs a cast starring Tony winner Cherry Jones (Succession) and Harry Treadaway (The Chemistry of Death).

Jones and Treadaway are Ma and Tom, the matriarch of the Joad family and its bravest son. Their farmland having failed, the Joads must travel across America. They seek work and food. They find exploitation and hunger.