Americana

These past two weekends we saw a couple of musicals, Ragtime and Big River. I bought the cast recording of Ragtime years ago, and fell in love with the music (Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald didn’t hurt, of course), so it was great to finally see a production of the show, in this case a local community-theater group, The Arlington Players (which I had auditioned for). Though I’m familiar with the music, I wasn’t as familiar with the book (of the musical, not the original novel per se; I hadn’t read the liner notes in a long while), so for certain plot points, it was very new to me. Some of the casting was uneven, but overall it was a good production.

Yesterday we saw Big River, a musical based on Huckleberry Finn. Wow, you have to see it, and specifically this production by Deaf West Theatre, which adapted the musical to integrate sign language into the acting. It’s so moving and powerful, and the coordination between the signing and singing, and the deaf and hearing actors, is amazing. One of the most effective moments of staging is during one of the company numbers, a reprise of “Waitin’ for the Light To Shine”; near the end of the song, the orchestra and voices cut out and for a few moments all the actors sign the refrain in silence. Another great touch is how in some songs, like those between Huck and Jim, the two actors use their hands together to form certain signs as one. (Aside: this cast includes Michael McElroy as Jim, who earned a Tony nomination for that role on Broadway. Also in the cast is Linda Bove, yes, Linda from Sesame Street! She is a founding member of Deaf West.)

The D.C. production of Big River is at Ford’s Theatre–is there a more perfect historical venue for this show?–and closes June 4; the national tour is running concurrently, with performances in Portland through May 29 and then Seattle through June 5.