How does John Steinbeck present the settings, including riverside, the bunkhouse, the barn, and Crooks' room, in the novel Of Mice and Men?

John Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men with the intention of turning the book into a stage play to be produced in New York in 1937, the same year the book was published. He called his book "a playable novel." It was written in such a way that it could be quickly and easily changed into a stage play. This explains, among other things, why the book is so short. The play could not run for more than a couple of hours, so the story has to be brief and end abruptly.

The descriptions of the settings, with the exception of the campsite by the river, seem like the stage directions in a play. Take the description of the bunkhouse in the opening of the second chapter. The first two sentences in the book read:

The bunkhouse was a long, rectangular building. Inside, the walls were whitewashed and the floor unpainted.

This could be written in the script for the stage play as:

The bunkhouse is a long, rectangular building. Inside, the walls are whitewashed and the floor unpainted.

Steinbeck kept the settings to the barest minimum, evidently because the New York play was to be a low-budget, experimental production. Almost everything takes place in the bunkhouse or in the barn. Crooks' room is only part of the barn and could be represented by some old furniture and a few items such as books and harnesses on one side of the stage. That side could be lighted when something is happening there and kept in darkness when the action is taking place in the barn itself. The riverside campsite can be represented onstage by nothing more than a fake campfire lighted by one or two electric bulbs. Steinbeck includes some description of the river and the landscape in the opening of the book, but these could simply be eliminated for the play.

Horses are never shown but only represented by sound effects offstage. The same is true of the men pitching horseshoes outside. A stage hand would clang a couple of pieces of metal together to represent a "ringer."

It should be noted that there are no big outdoor scenes, although this is a story about men working all day in the fields with teams of horses. In writing the book, Steinbeck had to keep the stage play in mind at all times. Almost all the exposition is conveyed in dialogue, as is done in a stage play. People come to the bunkhouse in order to avoid the need for creating other settings. The Boss comes there to sign George and Lennie up. This is a little odd, since they should go to the Boss and not have him come to them. Curley comes to the bunkhouse looking for his wife. Curley's wife comes to the bunkhouse pretending to be looking for Curley. Crooks comes to the bunkhouse to ask Slim a question.

The barn can be represented by some bales of hay and perhaps some loose hay scattered around the stage. Lennie really kills Curley's wife in order to bring the book/play to an end. George kills Lennie because Lennie kills Curley's wife, and the play is brought to a quick end. Editors would call this a "shotgun ending." It is quick and final. The book is so short that it cannot be called a novel. Some call it a novelette or a novella.

Steinbeck was noted for being a very good dialogue writer. His dialogue characterizes the speakers and provides information without doing so too conspicuously. Almost all the dialogue that would be needed in the play is contained in the book. It would just have to be presented in a slightly different format, with the name of each character shown in capitals before each bit of his or her dialogue. For example:

LENNIE: I won't get in no trouble, George. I ain't gonna say a word.

GEORGE: O.K. Bring your bindle over here by the fire. It's gonna be nice sleepin' here.