John Steinbeck's classic American tragedy-in-miniature has had five screen adaptations (including an Iranian film) but the only theatre version was the author's own, published and first staged in 1937, the same year as the novel.
During the writing process, he had told his agents that it was "neither a novel nor a play, but a kind of playable novel", so it's perhaps no surprise that the result cannot be described as a landmark.
The abrupt ending in particular, sardonically effective on paper, seems anti-climactic on stage.
This New York revival, although it arrives here under the NT Live banner, represents the Broadway debut of the prolific and versatile Franco and of his co-stars O'Dowd (Bridesmaids) and Meester (Gossip Girl).
It's a solid enough reading (and some of the supporting-role performances are great; Norton's ageing one-handed Candy comes closest to the tragic heart of the story), but Shapiro's staging is conventional, even staid. You can almost smell the dust and cobwebs in the splendid bunkhouse set, but at times the show feels more like a teaching aid for the popular school text than a thorough-going piece of theatre.
