49 pgs. 4 female, 13 male
Doubling is possible. Original production done with 3 actors.
Originally produced in CTC's 2006-07 season
Run Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Audience Recommendation: 8+
Widow Watson wants to ‘sivillise’ her ward, Huck Finn. He and his pal, Tom Sawyer, sometimes get into mischief just to take the edge off. Tom’s mischief often has a tinge of meanness to it, but it’s profitable. They have found some treasure, and that interests Huck’s pa – he’s usually off somewhere drinking. Pa wants Huck’s money, so he locks him in a shed by the river.
Huck escapes, making it look like thieves killed him and dumped his body in the river. He steals a canoe and floats downriver to an island where he comes upon a man he recognizes, already hiding there. Jim, Miss Watson’s slave, has escaped to get free and save money, so he can come back and buy his wife and children out of slavery. Huck has always thought of Jim as property owned by somebody, and knows it’s against the law to help him, but still the two renegades take up together and head down river on a raft.
They travel in the dark and lay low during the day. Huck slips into cornfields and melon patches, and steals food. It tugs at his conscience, but he makes peace with it – they don’t need to eat. He plays a trick on Jim once and can’t feel honorable until he apologizes. Huck has never thought of being sorry to a slave before and it changes him. When two slave hunters nearly discover Jim one night, Huck lies to keep his friend safe. Then a steamboat overturns the raft in the dark and they are separated. A family in the midst of a feud takes Huck in, but in the midst of shootings and killings he once again escapes by letting folks think he’s dead. Jim is nearby waiting, and they go on.
Soon they meet two scoundrels who are hustlers, thieves and gamblers that masquerade as actors. They style themselves as dispossessed royalty, and worst of all, turn Jim in for a reward. Jim is captured and chained in a shed on a cotton plantation. Huck’s been raised to think that helping Jim get free is wrong, but he still sets about helping Jim escape, with Tom Sawyer in on the plan. The boys free Jim, but Jim is recaptured helping Tom, who reveals that he widow has died and freed Jim in her will. The whole escape plan was nothing more than an adventure to Tom! But Jim is free, and Huck too, to light out for a territory where no one can ‘sivillise’ them.
“Greg Banks’ innovative interpretation of this American tale creates a muscular and exciting theater experience.” – Insight : Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts
“This version of the story captures Twain’s cadence and complexity, and it’s tinged with a sense of awe for the Mississippi River, a character that never says a word but still speaks volumes.” –St. Paul Pioneer Press
