Normally the group does short stories. Sinclair's 1927 opus introduces Bunny Ross, a young man who inherits his father's oil-drilling business and then shifts, politically, to socialism. It describes not just the early paving of Southern California but also the birth of Hollywood and the first echoes in America of the Russian Revolution. In other words, it's a novel about the 20th century's substructure. Chapter 1 is all suggestion and theme-development.
Some touches improve the novel by making it funny.
Deciding who says what is everything in a Word for Word production. Hernandez is a vigorous Engine, and Hunt does brilliant work as not just the Speedometer but also a yucca, a wild rose, the speed cop, and a swiveling restaurant door. My only complaint is with Hunt's and Hernandez's overwrought mugging as road and shop signs in the sleepy middle of the play. The cast, along with lighting designer Jim Cave, achieves one of the show's nicest effects near the end, when Bunny and Dad get out for a rest stop in Santa Ynez. Under yellowish light, in the sudden calm after the jalopy's noise, the stage feels vividly dusty and quiet, like an early California town.