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A Big River Runs Through St. Joseph HS
By Riverboat in Flotsam and Jetsam
April 23, 2010

The missus and I went to that play about a feller Mark Twain made – Huckleberry Finn. Only this one was called Big River. It was a reg’lar ripping show with lots of rollicking play-acting and slathers of talent by cast members of Saint Joseph’s High School. When we got to the theater, we were sot back by the stub-fetchers who were dressed like the folks back home. We found our seats and set down a spell. By and by, it got dark as a nation of cats. ‘Bout that time ol’ Huck came out and commenced to telling what the show was going to be about, and how Mark Twain told the truth, mostly. Well, this Huck was played by one of the best fellers that ever set foot on a stage. He had plenty of help, too. Like that Tom Sawyer rascal. And Jim, the runaway slave, filled up a stage all by hisself. He was a natcheral in his part. Pap and those put-ons, the King and the Duke, were rollicking war-whoop bulliness.

Some parts I remember better ‘cause I either laughed or cried a bit. When Pap come rolling across the stage after he drowned, I ‘most busted a gut. My eyes got kinda wet when Jim talked about his family, and his darling little girl what couldn’t hear, but Jim didn’t know until after he whomped her for not minding him when he told her to jump along. Well, when he got to crying after her, I was fetched right along. Then the phony royalty got me to laughing again when one of them mixed up orgies for obsequies when he was talking at a funeral. There was some romance, too, like when Huck kissed a most awful beautiful girl right there in the middle of the show.

All the characters were powerful good and made for gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond breast pin acting. And if I’m lying, then I’m a dirty abolitionist.

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