Of Mice And Men, York Theatre Royal from February 26 to March 16

MICHAEL Glenn Murphy has shown York Theatre Royal audiences his comic side. Now, after playing biographer Max Brod in Alan Bennett's Kafka's Dick and Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, matters turn more weighty and serious in John Steinbeck's epic American drama Of Mice And Men.

Directed by Bolton Octagon artistic director Mark Babych, this repertory co-production is running in Bolton before transferring to York from February 26.

Murphy is playing George, who sets off with fellow migrant farm worker Lennie (Joe Montana) in search of their own American dream. Where George is wise to the ways and wiles of the world, his well meaning, mentally retarded cousin Lennie has the strength of an ox but the mind of a child and attracts trouble wherever he goes. That dream is about to go awry.

Given that Michael Glenn Murphy is of Irish stock, and his fellow countrymen have long chased the American Dream, could he relate to the drama from personal family experience?

"No. My granddad was in the IRA, and my dad was in the British Army - he joined at a time when a lot of Irish people joined up, at the tail end of the Second World War," says Michael.

"But I think the great thing about this play, and the novel, is that Steinbeck's principles attract everyone: having your own place; being your own boss; not having to answer to anyone. Everyone in the western world can tap into that but there are all these obstacles that stand in the way, as George and Lennie find.

"In fact the American Right attacked Steinbeck for showing the underbelly of the American Dream. One per cent make it, 99 per cent don't, and what happens to them? Steinbeck looks at that situation, and pulls the rug from under the Dream."

Michael says loneliness runs through Of Mice And Men: "The play is all about a terrible loneliness: the character Crooks talks of a man going crazy if he doesn't have someone to speak to, and the only two people who are not lonely are George and Lennie. They may have a flawed relationship but they are friends and that makes others jealous."

Michael has appeared in Of Mice And Men once before, in Baroque Productions' tour in 1996, in the role of the antagonistic Curly, with Clive Mantle as Lennie and Lou Hirsch as George. "I remember it being a hard part; Curly's in and out of the play, doesn't have a lot of time to establish himself and yet he's one of the most talked-about characters. Steinbeck gives him just enough lines.

"He's like this bad wind; he comes in, disturbs everyone and then leaves, and so does his wife. Whatever they touch, they disturb the equilibrium."

George, in contrast, is not a hurricane. "I thought at first George was just a straight guy to Lennie but he turns out to be more complex than that, as I'm finding the more the production progresses.

"George's personal journey is one where he doesn't tell jokes at Lennie's expense any more; he has grown as a man, who has this weight of carrying Lennie around because Lennie is worse than a child: he never learns.

"It begs the question: why does George hang around with Lennie? The answer is, they share this dream, the dream of owning their own place, a lovely dream they have together."

That lovely dream is as alive as ever.

Of Mice And Men runs at York Theatre Royal from February 26 to March 16. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:11 Friday, February 15, 2002