Steinbeck's book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. That same year, movie director John Ford made a remarkable semi-documentary based on Steinbeck's rich, unsettling story.

Steinbeck was something of a dramatist himself (he wrote the theatrical adaptation of his own Of Mice and Men) but he never attempted to transfer his epic novel to the stage. About five years ago, the inventive Chicago company Steppenwolf took on the daunting task. Gary Sinese starred and resident director Frank Galati assembled a remarkable production that successfully moved to Broadway.

In this new University of Alberta production, based on Galati's seminal adaptation, director Kevin Sutley has mounted an urgent and compelling work. If there are problems here, the chances are you'll be too busy wiping away tears to give them a second thought.

Sutley has cast well, filling his stage with actors of all ages and sizes, (41 of them, in fact -including a dog) expertly dressed by Mariko Heidelk. These are costumes that look authentic, lived-in and well-worn for characters you could blow the dust off of. Sutley moves them around the stage with great skill, seamlessly morphing from big tableaus of dispirited and weary travellers sitting around campfires in rag-tag camps, to images of the Joads on their epic odyssey across America.

To help create the feeling of a classic journey, a trio of wandering musicians, led by Robert Clinton, perform the songs of the period, pushing the story along, filling in the holes and adding considerable atmosphere. "The dawn came but no day followed,'' are Steinbeck's ominous words describing what the dust bowl of Oklahoma had become in the '30s. Tom Joad (Jimmy Hodges) comes home from prison to find "the farms is empty, the houses empty. The land is empty.''

The sharpies are working this territory. They've come from the green orchards of California promising jobs and a new life. "California, where it's never cold. Fruit is growin' on the trees and people are livin' in little white houses.'' What they really want is cheap farm labour.

So the Joads, 15 or so of them, pull up their roots, pile into their ancient truck and set off across middle America carrying their meagre belongings and their dreams with them. "It don't take no nerve to do somethin' where they ain't nothin' else to do,'' someone observes.

The Joads are not alone on the road. "It's like the whole country is movin,' '' marvels one traveller. The pressures on the family mount. They are pushed along and hassled. Local police are usually in on the scams. There is labour unrest, desperation and starvation. And the family begins to shake itself apart.

This is all heavy, dramatic stuff and powerful writing, skilled direction and expressive performance combine to create an unblinking, often devastating theatrical experience.

Hodges' Tom is a dark, angry character constantly at war with his internal demons. Yet he is a likeable fellow who works hard, loves his family and has a highly developed sense of what's right and wrong.

Steinbeck effectively hides his genuine anger behind a language that turns his dryland farmers into poet-philosophers. Hodges effectively intones his lines as if he were a bard reciting some ode, taking full advantage of Steinbeck's soaring words.

Linda Huffman's Ma is the glue that holds the family together. Responding to the shifting rhythms of a family in constant flux, Huffman is spellbinding - displaying a wide range of emotions. When all seems lost, it is Ma whose faith remains unshaken. "People is going on,'' she proclaims defiantly. "Changin' but goin' on.''

The Grapes of Wrath is an experience all too rarely seen in theatre. It's alive to virtually every character's inner drives and outer passions - which is to say it is alive to life itself. It plays at the Timms Centre for the Arts until Oct. 10.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH - 5 SUNS (out of 5)