THE BEST laid schemes ...

[Michael Grove]

Of Mice and Men 

IT IS a sobering thought that, as the Telegraph has reported today -

"only three months after winning re-election, and with the extent of his authority in Washington again constrained - the President bemoaned his inability to do a  "Jedi mind-meld "  to get Republicans to change their minds, using imagery from Star Wars and Star Trek" ...

and to recall, in the context of the global situation today, the aftermath of

the first Great Depression which had so needlessly and tragically resulted

from "the age old struggle between capital and labour" - that was so

admirably portrayed , in Nobel prize-winning author John Steinbeck's series

of  "California novels"  and  Dust Bowl  fiction, which was set among the

common  people  during  the  Great Depression  - and which included 

The Grapes of Wrath - In Dubious Battle - and Of Mice and Men .

It was during a return road-trip to Vienna in 2001 that Linnie and I had

occasion to stay in Bregenz, around the time of my birthday, and at the

time of the preparations for the Bregenz Festival, in the year when they 

were staging on the lake - La Boheme and Of Mice and Men - that  I   

was struck  by  the juxtaposition  of  these  two  shows  in  the  context  

of  the  influence  of  art  on  life  in  general  and more particularly the 

complex consequences of the event which has come to be known as the

Wall Street Crash.

It was during that trip to Vienna that the seed of an idea was sown which is finally coming to fruition. 

.