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Musical packs Tampa arts center with singing, signing

Big River runs through Sunday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. $30.50-$66.50. 813 229-7837 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045; www.tbpac.org

By JOHN FLEMING
Published March 30, 2005

TAMPA - Maybe all musicals should incorporate American Sign Language into their performance. That's one message you could take from Big River, the Deaf West Theatre revival of Roger Miller's musical adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which opened Tuesday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

There's a fascinating energy that comes with director Jeff Calhoun's approach to telling the story through a combination of speech, singing and signing. It demands tremendous teamwork by the cast of eight deaf actors and 14 hearing actors. For example, Adam Monley, who plays Twain, the narrator, also provides the audible voice for Huck, played by the signing deaf actor, Garrett Matthew Zuercher.

The signing, also done by hearing actors, adds a useful layer of expressiveness, without especially drawing attention to itself after about five minutes. In a way, it's like the masks and puppets of The Lion King, deepening the sense of theatricality.

Big River is inspired because the deaf-hearing divide mirrors the dualities that run through the play: black and white, good and bad, civilization and wilderness, slavery and freedom. In a deft enactment of the theme, the two actors who play Huck's drunken Pap, Troy Kotsur and Erick Devine, turn up later as a pair of con artists, Duke and King.

There are times when signing does seem to take focus away from an actor's singing, such as in Devine's rendition of Pap's comic blues, Guv'ment, which was barely understandable. David Aron Damane, who plays Jim, had an uneven opening night, with some of his songs lacking power, but he came through soaringly in Free at Last.

The portrayal of Huck by Monley and Zuercher is virtually seamless. Zuercher is a charming, rawboned talent who has an uncanny ability to fit into musical numbers with no visible cues. Monley sings well and plays guitar, banjo, ukelele and harmonica.

Phyllis Frelich, who won a Tony Award for her performance as Sarah in Children of a Lesser God, plays that "tolerable slim old maid," Miss Watson. Melissa Van Der Schyff, as Huck's heartthrob, Mary Jane Wilkes, has a classic country weeper, You Oughta Be Here With Me. Gwen Stewart, playing the slave Alice, is a powerful gospel singer.

Fittingly, a memorable moment in the show is silent, when the last few bars of a reprise of the rousing Waitin' for the Light to Shine is signed.

Ray Klausen's storybook set is a marvel of versatility. Steven Landau conducted the small but resourceful orchestra from above the stage.

[Last modified March 30, 2005, 01:03:17]