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‘Big River' ready to roll into Yates |
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Written by Al Beeber
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Saturday, October 31 2009, 9:24 PM |
Juran Greene remembers clearly the first time he saw “Big River, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” a musical based on American literary giant Mark Twain’s famous novel.
The big-voiced Greene, a staple of Lethbridge stages for years, was in Cleveland where “I went to see this show when it was on the road back in 1986 or ’87. I thought it would be a great show to do,” recalled Greene, who after the Cleveland show tried to get a few autographs from the stage performers on a vinyl recording of the production.
“The music is unbelievable. It’s one of those shows I feel will be a real feather in the cap of LMT (Lethbridge Musical Theatre). It’s a fantastic show.”
The LMT production opens at the Yates Centre Friday and runs through Nov. 21. Tickets are $21 at the Ticket Centre, 403-329-7328.
Featuring a book by William Hauptman and music and lyrics by Roger Miller, “Big River” tells the story of Huck Finn in pre-Civil War Missouri after he and Tom Sawyer find a fortune of gold.
In the musical, Finn, escaping his father, travels with slave Jim to help him reach freedom in the North.
The two have various adventures after they run into a pair of carpetbaggers claiming to be a duke and king.
The LMT show will not be Greene’s first performance in the play. He was in the cast of the Canadian premiere in Raymond 17 years ago.
“It was the first Canadian theatre to do it. For the first three or four nights, nobody had heard of it and we only had 50 or 60 people in the audience. But word of mouth got around and after that, you couldn’t buy a ticket.
“I guarantee you when we open, give us three days and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a ticket,” says Greene.
“The music is brilliant; there’s heartwarming stuff in there that will make you damn cry. There’s something for everybody in it,” he says of the bluegrass and country-themed score.
The original Broadway production ran for more than 1,000 performances after it opened April 25, 1985 in the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. It closed Sept. 20, 1987 after a whopping 1,005 shows.
That production was nominated for eight Tony awards and won six, including one for best musical.
A critically-acclaimed revival ran for more than 60 performances after it opened in 2003.
That show featured hearing-impaired actors working alongside others with all dialogue signed as well as spoken or sung.
The plays, says Greene, is an extension of Finn’s life after his exploits with Sawyer, as he grows closer to adulthood.
The cast is a large one featuring performers such as Darrel Croft as King, Lary Murray as Duke, Greene as Jim and Jonah Primrose as Tom.
Joy Lawson plays Widow Douglass while her granddaughter Hanna Lawson-Dobirstein has a role also.
“I’ve known Joy since I’ve been here. She’s a sweetheart and Hanna is like my god-daughter. Fifteen years ago, I rocked Hanna in my arms.
“To see her grown up as she is, ‘holy smokes, you’re not the same girl I used to rock,’” he laughs.
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