STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : Steinbeck’s Son Sees More Relevance in Stage Version

May 14 may have been Mother’s Day for most of America, but, for John Steinbeck IV of La Jolla it was Father’s Day as he checked out the opening-night adaptation of his father’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,� at the La Jolla Playhouse.

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but I actually like the play better than I like the book,� Steinbeck said of the Steppenwolf Theatre production, the first authorized adaptation of the novel. “It’s more current, and it’s also easier to make the associations with today’s problems. It was also interesting seeing it done in La Jolla, a very rich community--which is not to say not a caring community--commemorating this very sad time. I think people walked outside realizing there are homeless people out there.�

America may have grown up with “The Grapes of Wrath,� still a 300,000-copy-a-year best seller after 50 years (according to Steinbeck’s biographer and San Diego State University professor Jackson J. Benson), but no American grew up with it more than John Steinbeck IV. At age 42 today, he was, as he says, “not even a gleam in my father’s eyes� when the book was first published.

Steinbeck IV, a free-lance journalist, saw the movie before reading the book and didn’t really plow into his father’s work until he was working in Laos in 1970 as a correspondent for “CBS Evening News� and Dispatch News Service. It was monsoon season; he had a lot of time and a stack of his father’s books.

“I thought the movie was very depressing,� he said. “Then I read the book. And I thought it was very depressing. It’s not my favorite book of his. But then, it’s more than a book. It’s kind of a monument.

“There was no question that my father worked with archetypes so that the symbolism would reach the people in the back row. He has people saying things like ‘grain and grass grow’ and ‘dust no more.’ Big stuff. I think today that audiences and readers want to see something a little more finely tuned and with more pastels, not just great big kick-you-in-the-teeth type stuff.�

Steinbeck said one of the most astonishing things about the book is how many people profess to admire what they would not even think of practicing. When the movie “The Grapes of Wrath� was made, Steinbeck said, the director shot it under the working title of “The Route 66 People� because “he was worried that there would be trouble with unions if the actors knew they were shooting that book.�

But John Steinbeck IV saves most of his vitriol for his father’s hometown, Salinas, Calif.

“When my father turned up on a postage stamp, there was a celebration at the library. Behind them there was a lettuce strike with Cesar Chavez, and they were angry because they thought the strike was interfering with the celebration. And the strike was what my father was all about!

“They hated him in Salinas. They make a lot of money on him these days because it was his birthplace. But they wanted him dead back in 1939.�

Four years worth of dreams at Sledgehammer Theatre went up in smoke Tuesday in the blaze that consumed the Farmers Bazaar.

Scott Feldsher, artistic director of Sledgehammer, had just arrived home and turned on the television when he saw the rehearsal and office space in which he kept his computer, his financial records and his photograph and videotape documentation of four years of work burn past any hope of reclamation.

It’s been part of a string of bad luck that has plagued the theater’s production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame,� scheduled June 2 at Horton Parsons Hall, 743 4th Ave.

First, the theater was sent scrambling for space when it was refused its first choice of location--the Carnation building--because the building’s ownership was under dispute. (Now the space is available for rent again.) Then, the week before “Endgame� was due to open, the show’s lead actor left over artistic differences with Feldsher. Now, of course, there’s the fire.

“It’s just devastating. We were both concerned about the fact that the building was a fire trap,� Feldsher said, referring to himself and Executive Director Ethan Feerst. “We kept saying we have to make a point of getting out some of the most valuable things. Because of all the trouble we’ve been having, we put it on the back burner--no pun intended.

“It’s been a very stressful and emotional couple of months. One thing we were talking about in rehearsal is that, when theaters do the play ‘Macbeth,’ no one says the name ‘Macbeth’ because it’s bad luck. So they call it the Scottish play. Now, in ‘Endgame,’ no one says the name ‘Endgame,’ we call it the Irish play.�

Also affected by the fire was the Ensemble Arts Theatre, which was using the Sledgehammer space to rehearse its upcoming production of Sam Shepard’s “Angel City.� The company is now working in the living room of its artistic director, Ginny-Lynn Safford, while it looks for a new space.

PROGRAM NOTES: The Old Globe’s Teatro Meta continues its Latino Play Discovery Series with the West Coast premiere of “Made in Buenos Aires� at the Progressive Stage Company today through Sunday. The play, by Nelly Fernandez Tiscornia, tells the story of an American couple who get the opportunity to visit their homeland in Argentina and, once there, argue about whether to stay or return to the United States. . . . Next up at the busy little Progressive is an example of small-theater cooperation. The Sweetooth Comedy Theatre teams up with Octad-One and the Progressive Stage Company at the Progressive venue at 433 G St. to present the San Diego premiere of Win Wells’ “Gertrude Stein and a Companion� June 2-18. On June 10, when the Sweetooth company has prior commitments, the University of Perversity group will fill in with “Scenes From Hell in a Handbasket.�

While August Wilson chronicles the African-American experience in this century with such shows as “The Piano Lesson� now at the Old Globe Theatre, the Diversionary Theatre company is planning a production of “Untold Decades,� a series of one-act plays chronicling gay relationships from the 1920s to the 1980s, by Robert Patrick, author of “Kennedy’s Children.� Diversionary Theatre is planning to open its show in mid-July. . . .

As the Bowery Theatre readies itself to open its next play, “Italian-American Reconciliation� in the new Kingston Playhouse next month, it will do so with a new president. John Howard, president of the Bowery Theatre for the last five years, has stepped down. The new president is Richard Madsen, the secretary is Linda Hack and the treasurer is Rachel Aungle. . . . It’s been quite a year for playwright Edward Albee in San Diego. The North Coast Repertory Theatre produced “Tiny Alice�; Sweetooth Theatre produced “Seascape�; he read from his new work, “Marriage Play� at the Hahn Cosmopolitan, and he participated in the California Young Playwrights Project local videotape of “Simply Maria, or the American Dream� that will air this fall on KPBS-TV. Now he will address graduates of San Diego State University at the 90th Commencement exercises Sunday, beginning at 9 a.m. in the Aztec Bowl.