 BIG RIVER
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Musical in 2 Acts, 18 Scenes.
Book by William Hauptman. Adapted
from the novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark
Twain. Music and lyrics by Roger Miller.
Originally produced by The American Repertory Theatre,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, subsequently
produced by The LaJolla Playhouse, LaJolla, California
Eugene O'Neill Theatre 25th April, 1985: closed 20th September,
1987 (1005 perfs)
Production staged by Des McAnuff. Scenery by Heidi Landesman.
Costumes by Patricia McGourty. Lighting by Richard Riddell. Sound by Otts
Munderloh. Musical supervision by Daniel Troob. Orchestrations by Steven
Margoshes and Danny Troob. Dance and incidental music by John Richard Lewis.
Musical direction and vocal arrangements by Linda Twine. Choreography by
Janet Watson. Stage movement and fights by B. H. Barry.
Story
"Do You Wanna Go to Heaven?" introduces us to Huck's
situation: "Sometimes," Huck says "it seemed like the whole blame town
of St. Petersburg was telling me who I should be." And, in fact, the whole
town does lecture him, warning ("You may think that the whole thing is
silly, but it isn't silly really...") that if he doesn't conform, he'll
go to hell. Late that night Huck escapes from his bedroom to join Tom
Sawyer and his friends in the cove, where they dream, in "The Boys song,"
of all the horrible and wonderful crimes they'll commit on the way to
"the bad place."
Reality intrudes later that night when Huck's father shows up in Huck's
bedroom and drags his son off to a cabin in the woods. The action - and
the music - takes a sharp turn as Pap careers between buffoonery and
dangerous, threatening malice. With his talking blues song, "Guv'ment," Pap
releases a life-time of frustration, ranting incoherently and hilariously
against a government that would take a man's son away from him.
Pap, in a drunken delirium, tries to murder Huck, then passes out. Huck
sees his chance to escape. He kills a pig, spilling the blood around
the cabin to make it look as though he has been murdered. Just as we
see that Huck is no longer playing kids' games, who appears, just outside
the action, but the eternal kid, Tom Sawyer. As Tom sings "Hand for the Hog," we see
how far apart the two boys are moving. Huck delivers the next number,
a whimsical character piece called, "I Huckleberry, Me," when
he's alone on Jackson's Island, living out what Tom might only fantasise.
But Huck soon finds he's not alone on Jackson's Island after all. Miss
Watson's slave Jim, who has run away to keep from being sold down river
to New Orleans, is there, too, and Huck makes the impulsive decision
to team up with Jim and help him get to the free states. With just minutes
to spare - a posse is after Jim - they launch a raft they have found
onto the river and head for freedom. "Muddy Waters
The fugitives, travelling only of night, don't get very far before they
are reminded of the seriousness of their action. A boat carrying captured
runaway slaves passes them in the darkness and as they sit very still,
Huck and Jim hear the plaintive, gospel strains of "The Crossing," a
hymn sung by people moving not towards but away from freedom. The song
has the quality of something remembered, of being recalled, in bits and
pieces, from the distant past.
They float down the river on the raft, narrowly escaping capture and
a collision with a steamboat, and drift in a fog past the mouth of the
Ohio, which was their route to freedom, Huck and Jim spend what will
turn out to be their lost moments alone together singing of the beauty
of life on the river. "River In the Rain"
An diversion arrives in the form of the King and the Duke, a couple
of con artists who commandeer the craft while escaping from an angry
mob. Immediately they begin practising their shenanigans on each other. "There's
sheep to be shorn all up and down this river," says the King, dreaming
of new ways to fleece ignorant townspeople. He and the Duke sing "When
the Sun Goes Down in the South" drawing Huck into their circle, leaving
Jim with the memory of "Muddy Water".
The second act opens with the King, Duke and Huck going ashore of Bricktown,
Arkansas to exact their first fraud. The Duke, moving among the townspeople
to announce the evening's great theatrical spectacle, appeals to their
prurient interest with a song about the acclaimed, if rather salacious,
Royal Nonesuch. "What's a Nonesuch?" asks one of the townsfolk. "Well,"
says the Duke, launching into his rhyme-a-second patter song, "She's got
one big breast in the middle of her chest, and an eye in the middle of
her nose." By the end of the evening, the locals have been taken for several
hundred dollars and Huck is beginning to discover a new way of life. When
he finally gets back to the raft, he is still in a mischievous mood and
plays a trick on Jim, pretending to be a slave hunter. Jim, not amused,
rebukes Huck for the first time. Huck, after reflecting on the matter,
admits that Jim is a human being who is owed on apology. Jim, accepts
the apology but recognises the wide space that exists even between good
friends of different races. They sing "Worlds Apart."
Huck, of course, is never allowed to slip too for back into his natural
humanity, as the King and Duke re-appear to draft him into their next
scheme. Jim is left once again on the raft while the three others go
oft in search of profitable adventures. They immediately encounter a
Young Fool on a dock singing the praises of Arkansas. The Fool inadvertently
fells them everything they ever want to know about a fortune to be inherited
because of a death in the Wilkes family. The King and Duke waste no time
presenting themselves at the Wilkes' house as the rightful heirs. In
the middle of one of the funeral hymns, "How Blest We Are," they
set about perpetrating their nefarious activities.
When Huck sees the beautiful, and innocent, Mary June Wilkes is being
robbed of everything by these rapscallions, he steals back her money
from the King and Duke. When Mary June herself appears, he hurriedly
stuffs the bag of gold in her father's coffin and hides behind it. She
sings an ironic love song to the corpse, "You Oughta Be Here With Me."
Mary Jane, upon discovering what Huck has done for her, asks him to
stay awhile and become her friend. He is deeply moved, but also realises
his responsibility to Jim. With Huck standing at centre stage, halfway
between Mary Jane and Jim, the three sing "Leavings Not the Only Way to Go".
Returning to the raft, Huck finds, not Jim, but a tarred and feathered
Duke, who admits he has sold Jim back into slavery for 40 dollars, After
the Duke stumbles away, Huck begins to feel guilty about what he has
done. He writes a letter to Miss Watson, telling her where she can find
her runaway slave, and for a moment feels better. But it isn't long before
he feels worse than ever. He tears up the letter, declaring, "All right
then, I'll go to hell." He is going to free Jim from captivity, the consequences
be damned, and expresses his resolution "Waitin' For the Light To Shine".
At this point the plot takes more fast turns than there are in the Mississippi,
and in one of the most surprising of them, Tom Sawyer shows up and decides
to help Huck steal Jim from his captors. Jim is imprisoned in a tiny
cell. His heartbreaking anthem, "Free At Last". Before Huck and Jim go there
separate ways at the end of the play - Jim up North to buy his family
out of slavery, Huck out West to get away from any attempts to "civilise"
him - they sit for a few moments by the bank of the river, recalling their
adventures together, even remembering a little bit of "River In the Rain".
Then Jim leaves and Huck is alone once more, thinking of their journey.
"It was like the fortune Jim predicted long ago," he says, "Considerable
trouble and considerable joy." |
