The 1985 Tony Award-winning musical, Big River, is rarely revived. This limited-tour mounting by Rockwell Productions shows that it's a viable work and a crowd pleaser for family audiences. The story is the classic Mark Twain tale of Huckleberry Finn, with music and lyrics by the late Roger Miller. Huck narrates his adventures, starting in the Missouri home where he is being raised by his aunts because his mother has died and his alcoholic father has abandoned him. We meet the household slave, Jim, and Huck's friend and neighbor, Tom Sawyer. When his father returns and threatens his life, Huck runs away. He's joined by Jim, who learned that the aunts were about to sell him down the river -- literally, to a slave dealer in New Orleans. Huck and Jim sing the anthem "Muddy Water" -- the show's most-remembered song -- as they raft down the Mississippi to meet the Ohio River, then head to freedom in a Northern state. But they miss the turn, so to speak, and float southward towards unfriendly Arkansas. Eventually Huck returns home and wins Jim's freedom. Bennett Dunn is an appealing Huck and Derek J.Alexander a strong Jim.
One of the high spots of Big River is their joining voices in the poignant "Worlds Apart," where Roger Miller proved he could write appealing ballads as well as the quirky comic songs which made him famous. Douglas Holmes and Jeff Kronson are outstanding as the charming scoundrels, the "Duke" and the "King." In the Act One finale, "When the Sun Goes Down," Holmes, Kronson and Dunn tear up the stage. Some other characterizations are less successful, due largely to the writing and the direction. The Tom Sawyer of Joe Farrell comes across as a goof, rather than the stalwart friend that we remember from Twain's books. Huck's father and his aunts are caricatures, played loudly and stridently.
The show as a whole could use more repose, more reflective nights on the river under the stars.
