Steinbeck's dust-bowl epic hits the stage with Cherry Jones delivering a Ma Joad for the ages.
Forced to travel West in search of a promised land, the Joad family embark on an epic journey across America in the hope of finding work and a new life in California. Their story is one of false hopes, wrong turns and broken dreams, but also a hymn to human kindness and a tribute to the endurance of the human spirit.
Acting
Cherry Jones's Ma Joad — a mountain of quiet steel.
Direction
Carrie Cracknell makes 146 minutes feel like breathing smoke.
Production
Minimalist staging that somehow contains an entire migration.
Director
Carrie Cracknell
Cherry Jones
Ma Joad
Harry Treadaway
Tom Joad
Natey Jones
Jim Casy
Zoe Aldrich
Elizabeth Sandry / Second Agricultural Officer / Understudy Granma Joad & Ma Joad
Afolabi Alli
Muley Graves / Floyd Knowles / Ensemble / Understudy Jim Casy & Mr. Wainwright
Rhys Bailey
Winfield Joad / Understudy Noah Joad, Al Joad, Man in the Barn's Son
Brandon Bassir
Camp Proprietor / First Officer / Second Man / First Man with Club / Understudy Tom Joad & Willy's Accomplice
Tom Bulpett
Noah Joad / Understudy Weedpatch Camp Director & Mayor of Hooverville
Ryan Ellsworth
Willy / Man Going Back / Mayor of Hooverville / Man in Barn / Understudy Grampa/Contractor/Pa Joad/Uncle John
Christopher Godwin
Grampa Joad / Contractor
Greg Hicks
Pa Joad
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Cherry Jones previously played Ma Joad in a 1990 Hartford Stage production — she's been marinating in this role for 34 years.
The 2024 staging deliberately echoes contemporary migrant crises; audiences reportedly wept harder at the border scenes than in previous productions.
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