Mice guys finish last

What: “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, directed by Richard Cook

When: 7:15 p.m., tonight and tomorrow, 2 p.m., Sunday

Where: Park Square Theatre, 20 W. Seventh Place, St. Paul

Cost: $4 with Play Pass available at Coffman Union with student I.D.

Besides his name, the only thing small about Lennie Small is his limited mental capacity. The lumbering, oafish physicality opposite his best friend George Milton results in unintended conflict for the duo in “Of Mice and Men.” At one point, Small inadvertently breaks a woman’s neck, and Milton must rely on his wit to protect his friend.

But John Steinbeck’s 1937 parable also leaves characters like Milton facing all kinds of life-and-death decisions. While Small’s lackadaisical fantasies of stroking soft rabbits perpetually offer dreamy meditations of the future, Milton must decide whether to take action in light of Small’s constant mishaps.

Steinbeck crafted a second version of the iconic tale for Broadway in 1939 after writing the novella as a story that could be both performed and read as a novel. The stark realism lends especially well to stage interpretations of the play — iconic characters like Small and Milton become living testaments to a generation’s hardships. Now in his third year performing the play, Park Square Theatre director Richard Cook explains the novella’s increasing relevance.

The Nobel Prize-winning novelist also known for “East of Eden” and “The Grapes of Wrath” relays direct experience as a bindlestiff. In a 1937 interview with The New York Times, Steinbeck said he based Small off of a real person he worked with. And when the real-life Small became distraught after a boss fired his friend, he stabbed the boss in the stomach with a pitchfork.

 “I think his insights and his curiosity about the challenges that a truly diverse nation creates for itself are probably more tangible today — in some ways he was ahead of its time that way,” Cook said.

Economic and social barriers limit the lives of characters like Crooks in “Of Mice and Men,” a black stable-hand who works with an injured back. The assortment of migrant workers like Crooks continually reinforces the group’s weak grasp of the future. Warren Bowles, who plays Crooks, finds a fusion of characters that is incredibly telling of Steinbeck’s human sensibilities.

“When you hear them talk about their living situations where they always have to fear threats, they have to fear violence, they have to fear thefts — these men are thrown together by necessity,” Bowles said. “It’s not a merry band of brothers.”

With more than 40 years’ experience in theater and a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota, Bowles adds a thorough knowledge of classic works to Park Square Theatre’s adaptation alongside meaningful personal ties to Steinbeck’s story. Bowles was born and raised in the southwestern United States and uses his family as a frame of reference in playing Crooks.

“I can see the types of people and situations that my parents and certainly my grandparents had to deal with,” Bowles said.

Bowles’s parents’ and grandparents’ generation exuded a survival mentality synonymous with life for many during the Depression. The radically opposed characters in “Of Mice and Men” share desperation but also hold out slivers of hope, ultimately lost amid Steinbeck’s austerity.

“That sense of the ‘American Dream’ has pretty much always been an illusion that’s been hung out there, but people don’t get it. That’s what Crooks says, ‘Everyone has a little piece of land in his head — not a goddamn one of ‘em gets it,’” *******Bowles said.

Milton’s final act in the story represents the time’s chaotic fear. Actor Terry Hempleman continues to explore the character’s internal mystery with his third performance as Milton. His troubling act concluding the play lies at the core of Steinbeck’s classic as he shoots Small in the back of the head as he regales him with another fantasy.

“I recognize [‘Of Mice and Men’] as something from the world, but I don’t completely understand it and so I think that’s one of the hallmarks of a good play,” Hempleman said. “It’s a little bit inscrutable and it’s affecting.”

The ultimate act forces audience members to cope with Small’s loss, an attempt to reason Milton’s violent act. Love becomes the reason for such an extreme ending and this struggle to accept Milton’s realistic mindset opens discussion of a generation’s destitution.

“They all have and strive to protect a certain little dominion in which they have power, but they are all very vulnerable to lose that power,” Bowles said.

“The parallels are a little distressing, actually, because some of this is a little too current and it shouldn’t be, but it is,” Cook said.