The director's sensitivity to Floyd's score was evident in her simple blocking of the arias as well as the evocative tableau used during the musical interludes. At times it seems as if the characters are absorbed into the still-life silhouettes of Kurt Meeker's sparse, emblematic sets. Meeker's designs frame scenes with inconspicuous grace, and Pamela Gray's subdued lighting capitalizes upon the opera's more mysterious mood plays. Floyd's setting of the novel is faithful to its source on emotional terms, and his orchestration is filled with glistening timbres and intricacies. Still, the score falls short of translating Steinbeck's fluid style.
Nuance is observed to such an extent that the work's theatrical impact is sacrificed.
The story of two drifters, Lennie and George, out to make a new start as ranch hands on an unnamed spread bespeaks tragedy from the outset. We first see them off by themselves, Lennie holding a mouse he has inadvertently suffocated and George planning their next move. The mouse embodies a past that the two friends cannot outrun, and it also serves as an omen of the destiny that awaits them. Curly, the volatile ranch superintendent, and his flirtatious wife dramatically complicate George and Lennie's plans. It's clear by the second act that the two characters' days together are numbered.