Posts Tagged Jaxin Hall

Did You Know? (Fun Facts About “Of Mice and Men”)

 

The Of Mice and Men cast
(Photo by Petronella J. Ytsma)

Of Mice and Men was John Steinbeck’s first attempt at writing a novel-play (a novel that could also function as a script). It has six scenes in groups of two chapters each, producing three acts.

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Michael Paul Levin (George) and E. J. Subkoviak (Lennie)

Something That Happened was Steinbeck’s original title for Of Mice and Men. He chose that title to mean that the events in the book were simply “something that happened” for which nobody could be blamed. However, he changed the title to Of Mice and Men after reading Robert Burn’s poem To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up in Her Next with a Plow, which describes the plowman’s regret for accidentally destroying a mouse’s home. The title was specifically inspired by these lines: “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men/Gang aft a -gley, And lea’v us nought for grief and pain,/For promised joy.”

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 Steinbeck’s dog, Max, ate an early draft of Of Mice and Men.

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A scene from Of Mice and Men; Patrick as Candy is seated next to Boo, the pit bull who plays Candy’s dog.

In high school, Steinbeck once worked as a ranch hand; and while in college, he also worked on neighboring farms (especially Spreckels Sugar Ranch) which relied on the cheap labor of migrant workers. He’d obviously drawn from his work experiences for Of Mice and Men. For instance, this is what he cited as his inspiration for Lennie in an interview with The New York Times in 1937: “I was a bindlestiff myself for quite a spell. I worked in the same country that the story is laid in. The characters are composites to a certain extent. Lennie was a real person. He’s in an insane asylum in California right now. I worked alongside him for many weeks. He didn’t kill a girl. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the boss had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his stomach. I hate to tell you how many times I saw him do it. We couldn’t stop him until it was too late.”

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Mice and Men appears on the American Library Association’s list of the Most Challenged Books of the 21st Century. Reasons cited for its banning throughout the years: promoting euthanasia, condoning racial slurs, being anti-business, containing profanity and using vulgar and offensive language. Of Mice and Men has been challenged over 50 times since its publication in 1936, but many of the bans and restrictions have been lifted. In fact, it is often required reading in high schools in America, Australia, Ireland, Britain, New Zealand and Canada.

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An American metalcore band based in Orange County, California, named itself Of Mice and Men. It was founded by former band members Austin Carlile (vocalist) and Jaxin Hall (bassist) in 2009. In explaining the band’s name, Austin said, “You make plans, and they get screwed up. [Jaxin Hall] and I both had plans for life, and they both got screwed up, so now we’re making the most of what we can.”

Jaxin added, “The main theme of [Of Mice and Men] is the American Dream . . . and being self-sufficient . . . . So this was to be our self-sufficient thing that we could live off and make our own and achieve this dream.”

 

Just three evening performances left:  Thursday, December 16, Friday, December 17 and Saturday, December 16, all at 7:30 p.m. Tickets and more information here.

 

Sources: Wikipedia.com and Cliffsnotes.com

Photos: All photos of scenes from Park Square Theatre’s Of Mice and Men taken by Petronella J. Ytsma

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