New York State Theater Institute founder Patricia Snyder had a question for John Romeo.
After more than 25 years with the theater, were there any roles Romeo still yearned to play?
Actually, he said, there was. He had always wanted to be Lennie in Of Mice and Men.
`It’s one of the best roles in contemporary theater,` he said.
Romeo gets his wish Friday, Oct. 31, when the curtain rises on NYSTI’s production of `Of Mice and Men,` John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story of friendship set in Depression-era California. Romeo’s character is a simple-minded gentle giant; David Bunce plays George, a fellow ranch hand who acts as Lennie’s de facto caretaker.
There are plenty of laughs in the beginning, director Ed Lange said. But at its core, he said, `Of Mice and Men` is a tragedy: Lenny accidentally kills a woman while trying to stroke her hair, and George, wanting to spare Lenny from a vengeful lynch mob, shoots him in the back of the head.
In most roles, actors get to show how smart they are, Romeo said. In this one, though, his job is to give an understated performance, without reducing Lennie to a `caricature.`
`It works so against your natural actor instincts,` he said.
That challenge was one of the reasons he’d always wanted to tackle the role of Lennie. Another was his respect for Steinbeck’s story.
`The ideas are complex,` Romeo said. `It’s very deep and very complex. It says so much about society, men, and life in the ’20s and ’30s.`
For Bunce, what sticks out most about the story is the relationship between George and Lennie.
`It’s such an incredible story of friendship,` he said. It might seem that Lennie is a burden, but `I think George gets as much out of it as Lennie does. I think it’s a very symbiotic relationship.`
Bunce actually played the role of George once before, but only briefly. In college, he and a classmate acted out the first and final scenes of `Of Mice and Men` for another student’s directing project.
He loved the part, and getting to reprise it alongside Romeo holds special significance for Bunce because the two are longtime friends themselves.
`We’ve been doing plays together for 25 years,` Bunce said. `It’s very comfortable working together. With just a nod, we can translate what we need to do.`
Lange, the director, shares that sense of familiarity. Lange retired as NYSTI’s associate artistic director in 2006; before that, he had called Bunce and Romeo co-workers for more than two decades.
`There’s really something special about working with people you know so well,` he said. `We have a way of communicating with each other. We just understand.`
The ease with which the trio works together has helped them overcome the unusual production schedule for `Of Mice and Men.` The cast had its first rehearsals in August, then had to break for more than six weeks while NYSTI staged `Twelve Angry Jurors.`
Romeo said that he could concentrate on only one show at a time, so he had to put `Of Mice and Men` on the back burner while he worked on `Twelve Angry Jurors.` That proved frustrating, because when the `Of Mice and Men` cast reconvened on Monday, Oct. 20, things weren’t quite clicking the way they had in August.
`We were in a groove,` Romeo said. `We’ve had to do a lot of catching up.`
In fact, on the first day rehearsals resumed, Lange panicked.
`I thought, oh my gosh. We’re never going to be able to get this thing back on track,` he said.
But by mid-week, the cast was right back where it needed to be.
`It kind of all came together,` Bunce said.
Lange, who credits the actors’ professionalism for the quick turnaround, comes back to NYSTI once a year to serve as guest director and is thrilled to be at the helm of `Of Mice and Men.` When Snyder gave him a list of titles to choose from and he saw `Of Mice and Men` on the list, `I jumped at it,` he said.
Like Romeo, he cited the depth of the story as one of its main attractions.
`The characters are extremely simple. They’re trying to make the best out of their lives,` Lange said. `And what comes out is this enormous complexity about human nature. You get this wonderful rainbow of people and experiences.`
`Of Mice and Men` runs from Friday, Oct. 31, to Sunday, Nov. 9, in the Schacht Fine Arts Center at Russell Sage College, 5 Division St., Troy. Tickets are $20 for adults, $16 for senior citizens and students and $10 for children 12 and younger. They can be purchased by calling the NYSTI box office at 274-3256 or visiting its Web site, www.nysti.org.“