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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Alice Saville

The Grapes of Wrath review: Steinbeck’s hymn to human misery and endurance is epic but scrappy on stage

MA Carrie Cracknell Cherry Jones John Steinbeck Richard Hubert Smith Depression
Richard Hubert Smith

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John Steinbeck’s classic The Grapes of Wrath might be a bona fide Great American Novel but there’s something deeply un-American about its values. Dreaming isn’t enough, it argues. The system is rigged. God doesn’t care. Collective struggle is the answer. These subversive messages shine through Carrie Cracknell’s epic but scrappy three-hour adaptation, which trails behind a sprawling clan of dustbowl refugees in the Depression era.

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