Splittin' The Raft

Robert Hurwitt
November 17, 2005

“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted,” Mark Twain wrote in the first edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” “Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”

Scott Kaiser is guilty of all three offenses in “Splittin’ the Raft, “ the curiously confounding and compelling new play that opened Tuesday at Marin Theatre Company. He not only finds the plot but drastically simplifies it in a manner that surely would have infuriated Twain and that is likely to vex lovers of his brilliant novel. Kaiser not only located a motive and a moral but intertwines Twain's words with those of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass to enlarge the tale’s social lesson.

The result is something considerably less than the novel and much more interesting than a mere dramatization of it. “Raft,” the second of three world premieres in Marin’s risky new season, is always intriguing, often funny, deeply evocative and at times very moving. It’s also, in director Danny Scheie’s blithely inventive production, for the most part wonderfully entertaining.

It’s Huck and Jim on a raft with Douglass along for the ride, a frankly didactic theatrical excursion that creatively revels in its pedagogical mission. It runs a bit long and not all of Scheie’s innovations work, but it’s delightfully layered with smartly selected cultural artifacts and performed with wit, grace and conviction by a sharp ensemble led by Aldo Billingslea and Stacy Ross.

“Raft” comes by its didacticism honestly. Kaiser, a longtime member for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s dramaturgical staff, began developing the text in ’98 for the company’s school program. Originally a short dramatization of parts of the novel, it grew with the addition of Douglass as a way of putting Twain’s treatment of racial attitudes – and lately ever –more controversial use of a particular racial epithet – in context.

The idea works, and not just because Twain and Douglass were friends. The measured eloquence of Douglass’ words reinforces the depth and dignity of Twain’s runaway slave Jim, especially in Billingslea’s sensitive rendition of both parts. The use of Douglass’ descriptions of the horrors of slavery, and of contemporary sermons extolling the practice as ordained by God, adds to the gravity of Jim’s escape and Huck’s defiance of morality as he understands it.

Scheie plays directly to Kaiser’s didacticism, setting the play as an exceptionally creative school exercise in Kate Boyd’s stunning classroom set – a towering wall of open shelves stocked with books, globes, old typewriters and several generations of scholastic implements. An old-fashioned schoolyard merry-go-round serves as a revolving stage, and raft, as Erik Pearson upholsters a blackboard and several screens with a rich anthology of slides, graphics and films, including a broad selection of “Huckleberry Finn” movies.

The play opens essentially as a lesson delivered to the three eager children, except that they’re also the audience for one of Douglass’ great abolitionist speeches. As they listen, Douglass segues to Twain’s novel and a captivated Ross – as much lanky tomboy as intrinsically rebellious preteen – takes on the role of Huck. As Kaiser intercuts Huck and Jim’s adventure with Douglass’ speeches, Scheie bolsters the tale with hymns and spirituals, expertly played by pianist John Florencio.

Ross and Billingslea create a tender and moving bond between the boy struggling with his conscience and the slave yearning for freedom. Karen Aldridge and Mark Farell deftly depict a host of other characters in Todd Roehrman’s comically schematic costumes – with Aldridge as the fussy Widow Douglas and the boisterously goodhearted Aunt Sally, and Farrell as Huck’s abusive, drunken father and a buoyant Tom Sawyer, among various slave hunters and others. Including, of course, those incomparable con men the King (Farrell) and the Duke (Aldridge).

Kaiser sells those parts short, however. There’s just a suggestion of the scoundrels’ hilarious depths of depravity in “Raft” – no “Royal Nonesuch” or grand inheritance scheme. There’s very little here, in fact, of Twain’s great examination of the people and ideas of the antebellum South. Kaiser’s focus is entirely on the slavery issue, making ”Raft” a vehicle for only one aspect of the novel’s riches.

But it’s an aspect Kaiser and Scheie explore n dramatic depth. If some elements, such as half-hearted slave-trade song-and-dance routines, don’t quite work, the juxtaposition of Douglass’ descriptions wiyh Twain’s story creates timeless reverberations. In Billingslea’s strikingly modulated performance, Jim’s plight is movingly real. And in Huck’s conflict over helping his friend at the expense of what he believes is eternal damnation, Ross vividly captures the central moral dilemma of Twain’s all-American tale.