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Ashland Theater Review: Mother Road

Jenny Graham
/
Oregon Shakespeare Festival

“Mother Road,” by Octavio Solis, is an intriguing new drama at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. As directed by Bill Rauch, the tale of hard luck and hope is almost mythic.

This imaginative sequel to John Steinbeck’s novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” recalls the travails of the Joad family, who left their dried-up Oklahoma farm during the Depression, and drove west in search of migrant work.

Now, the last Joad in Oklahoma, an old, dying man named William, owns  the farm, which he has enlarged and restored. William, played with gritty authenticity by Mark Murphey, had vowed to pass the farm on to another Joad, but he has no heirs.

His lawyer discovers a genuine Joad in California. The only hitch is that this Joad, the appealing Tony Sancho, is a Mexican American named Martín Jodes. In this version, Tom, of the novel, had fled to Mexico, got married, and had a daughter. Their name evolved into Jodes, which, considering the misfortunes of the Joads, is quite appropriate. Jodes is an F word in Spanish.

Martín, Tom’s grandson, has the Joad DNA. Although William is appalled, he offers him the farm. Martín is distrustful, but he hasn’t much to lose. So he and William hit Mother Road en route to Oklahoma in his beat-up truck, stopping for adventures and flashbacks, and to pick up Martín’s lesbian cousin Mo, delightfully tough Amy Lizardo, who will be his foreman, and grow organic crops.

The family tree is somewhat hard to decipher, but a big billboard offers projected road signs, and the play is held together by a sort of Greek chorus, whose poetic dialogue often rises to song.

This is Dorothy Velasco with KLCC’s Ashland Theater Review.

Dorothy Velasco has reviewed productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for KLCC since 1985.
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