Big River
February 13, 2017 7:00 AM Subscribe
This past week, City Center Encores! mounted a production of the 1985 Broadway musical Big River, a musicalized version of Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which most recently enjoyed a revival in 2003, mounted by DeafWest . The New York Times review prompted Artistic Director Jack Viertel to pen this response.
Jesse Green, New York Magazine: Theater Review: Encores! Shows Why Big River Isn’t Coming Back Anytime Soon
Jesse Green, New York Magazine: Theater Review: Encores! Shows Why Big River Isn’t Coming Back Anytime Soon
I'm in the middle of reading Jack Viertel's book right now, so it's surprising to see him come out the gate swinging like this (though maybe it shouldn't be).
I don't know. I think there's an important conversation to have about contemporary tellings of historical stories, and what we can and should expect to get out of them, and what standards we hold them to, and what we forgive in them, and what we hold up as a juxtaposition to our own time without expecting it to reflect our own time...
But mostly this morning I wish we could have that conversation without calling Laura Collins-Hughes a narrow-minded, embarrassing bigot. Seeing the "PC Police" come out in the comments just makes my heart hurt after the few months we've had.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite Anne Lamott quotes: "You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too."
posted by Zephyrial at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2017 [8 favorites]
I don't know. I think there's an important conversation to have about contemporary tellings of historical stories, and what we can and should expect to get out of them, and what standards we hold them to, and what we forgive in them, and what we hold up as a juxtaposition to our own time without expecting it to reflect our own time...
But mostly this morning I wish we could have that conversation without calling Laura Collins-Hughes a narrow-minded, embarrassing bigot. Seeing the "PC Police" come out in the comments just makes my heart hurt after the few months we've had.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite Anne Lamott quotes: "You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too."
posted by Zephyrial at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2017 [8 favorites]
Yeah, I was expecting a thoughtful response, but to be honest I should have been expecting Zero Chill White Guy, which is what we of course received.
posted by selfnoise at 7:24 AM on February 13, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 7:24 AM on February 13, 2017 [5 favorites]
I haven't seen this production, but I agree with those who say the musical is problematic.
The characters of Huck and Jim -- especially Jim -- are so big, so mythic, that they strain against their novel and their adaptations and this musical. Jim is really a problem in modern adaptations (which tone down his superstition, and make us perceive more of his dignity than Huck does) because we remember this character of a dignified, moral man, a protective figure and surrogate father to Huck. As for the actual plot, we may remember Huck deciding to "go to hell" in order to help Jim escape, but we generally forget that he and Tom act with remarkable cruelty towards Jim at the end--literally leaving him captive in a shed so that Tom can play games about rescuing him, when Jim has been legally free all along.
I just don't know if this kind of plot works with a feel-good Americana musical. "Huck and Jim's Grand Mississippi Adventure" is one thing, but perhaps not "How I Learned to See Black Folks As Human, Maybe, As Long As It's Thrilling".
posted by Hypatia at 7:24 AM on February 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
The characters of Huck and Jim -- especially Jim -- are so big, so mythic, that they strain against their novel and their adaptations and this musical. Jim is really a problem in modern adaptations (which tone down his superstition, and make us perceive more of his dignity than Huck does) because we remember this character of a dignified, moral man, a protective figure and surrogate father to Huck. As for the actual plot, we may remember Huck deciding to "go to hell" in order to help Jim escape, but we generally forget that he and Tom act with remarkable cruelty towards Jim at the end--literally leaving him captive in a shed so that Tom can play games about rescuing him, when Jim has been legally free all along.
I just don't know if this kind of plot works with a feel-good Americana musical. "Huck and Jim's Grand Mississippi Adventure" is one thing, but perhaps not "How I Learned to See Black Folks As Human, Maybe, As Long As It's Thrilling".
posted by Hypatia at 7:24 AM on February 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
I agree that this was not perhaps the best hill upon which to drop The Bomb of Artistic Integrity.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 8:08 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by DrAstroZoom at 8:08 AM on February 13, 2017
I just wish the DeafWest tour had come to Chicago. I was desperate to see it, after hearing (hah) about certain moments and how they were executed on stage. I wish there were a full video record of it available to the public.
posted by tzikeh at 8:26 AM on February 13, 2017
posted by tzikeh at 8:26 AM on February 13, 2017
Huh. I think Viertel is the one who should be embarrassed here. His histrionic reaction manages to miss the point of the Times review almost entirely. Collins-Hughes, to my read, is saying that the show as written is an awkward fit for the political moment we're in right now and discourages this show moving to Broadway. She couches that discouragement not by disparaging Twain, as Viertel seems to think, but by reflecting on the way Big River doesn't, to her, manage to engage with and reflect on the themes of the novel deeply or thoroughly enough to merit a bigger production. When joined with insight into the performances, direction, and technical merits of the show, that consideration of the wider cultural context is good criticism, I think. That's where Viertel and I differ, I guess.
posted by minervous at 8:36 AM on February 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by minervous at 8:36 AM on February 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
I haven't seen a production of Big River, and only listened to an Original cast recording back in the '80s, of which I remember little other than finding it decent enough on a single listen, so I have no comment about the specifics of this brouhaha directly, but the basic issue is one that comes up fairly often and doesn't seem to have a good answer.
The crux of the problem seems to lie between Collins-Hughes statement, "It’s because of the cultural conversation we’ve been having lately about the role of black artists, and women too. Expectations have changed." and Viertel's belief "Mark Twain does not go in and out of style." and after listing Huck Finn's historical bonafides, "Are we supposed to take everything off the shelf (and off the boards) that doesn’t confirm to 2017’s ideas of “appropriate” contemporary art?"
The problem then is one where some audience members, Collins-Hughes in this instance, will rely on present values and interests to judge the merits or value of a work, while others are comfortable using a larger historical or social context for evaluation. Both can be entirely appropriate and need not necessarily be at odds in the abstract, but in practice this division often can cause resentment and anger towards other viewers who don't follow one's own preferred idea of context. That there are yet other viewers who rely on neither and may potentially view the work in a fashion that is disagreeable to either party is also important since much of this argument revolves around the idea of audience in the abstract.
To simplify somewhat what Collins-Hughes might worry about is how an uninformed audience member might interpret the play and its use of language that is considered grossly out of place today, and with the white cast members dominating the cast members of color. If the play weren't based on Twain and was written fresh today those complaints would hold different notice than they do being about a book with its own history of some note in more progressive ideals. Viertel sees the latter as being the more defining characteristic, which for him it almost certainly is as his view of Twain and the novel includes that history as an inseparable part of it. His attitude, again to simplify greatly, is that one plays to the informed audience, that the response of those who best understand the complete context is more significant than any more limited viewing. It's, in essence, a view of art and audience on a personal, one to one, interaction. Leaving aside any specific criticisms about this play, where the arguments become more tied to detail, this split is not easy to overcome and each side has some really significant problems with their approach.
The Collins-Hughes side by minimizing history and larger context becomes prey to novelty and the solipsism of "our" times being somehow best suited to view the expanse of all situation, while Viertel's position to readily ignores responses that will not align with the ideal, and which could, in potential come to opposing conclusions based on taking the work out of context. While, personally, I tend to lean towards Viertal's viewpoint overall for my own approach to viewing, in no small part due to my interest being so heavily invested in older works, I can't deny the importance of Colins-Hughes perspective since it is painfully obvious that most audience members will not look to context in evaluating artworks, so "misreadings" can gain more traction than "proper" readings and can, perhaps, actually cause some harm by being so.
This being the case, I try to separate my own experience or understanding of the work from both seeing it as "right" and from how I might share or discuss the work with others, There are some works I personally find deeply meaningful, powerful, or important, the experience of which I only share when interacting with others I know well enough to understand something of how they will respond to the concepts being raised, and will be much more reticent in sharing my feelings with those whose manner of appreciation is unknown to me. Unfortunately public critics do not have that option, so in best practice they have to do both, think of the present and stress the larger context as to best inform the audience of the potential upsides and downsides of the experience.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:37 AM on February 13, 2017 [4 favorites]
The crux of the problem seems to lie between Collins-Hughes statement, "It’s because of the cultural conversation we’ve been having lately about the role of black artists, and women too. Expectations have changed." and Viertel's belief "Mark Twain does not go in and out of style." and after listing Huck Finn's historical bonafides, "Are we supposed to take everything off the shelf (and off the boards) that doesn’t confirm to 2017’s ideas of “appropriate” contemporary art?"
The problem then is one where some audience members, Collins-Hughes in this instance, will rely on present values and interests to judge the merits or value of a work, while others are comfortable using a larger historical or social context for evaluation. Both can be entirely appropriate and need not necessarily be at odds in the abstract, but in practice this division often can cause resentment and anger towards other viewers who don't follow one's own preferred idea of context. That there are yet other viewers who rely on neither and may potentially view the work in a fashion that is disagreeable to either party is also important since much of this argument revolves around the idea of audience in the abstract.
To simplify somewhat what Collins-Hughes might worry about is how an uninformed audience member might interpret the play and its use of language that is considered grossly out of place today, and with the white cast members dominating the cast members of color. If the play weren't based on Twain and was written fresh today those complaints would hold different notice than they do being about a book with its own history of some note in more progressive ideals. Viertel sees the latter as being the more defining characteristic, which for him it almost certainly is as his view of Twain and the novel includes that history as an inseparable part of it. His attitude, again to simplify greatly, is that one plays to the informed audience, that the response of those who best understand the complete context is more significant than any more limited viewing. It's, in essence, a view of art and audience on a personal, one to one, interaction. Leaving aside any specific criticisms about this play, where the arguments become more tied to detail, this split is not easy to overcome and each side has some really significant problems with their approach.
The Collins-Hughes side by minimizing history and larger context becomes prey to novelty and the solipsism of "our" times being somehow best suited to view the expanse of all situation, while Viertel's position to readily ignores responses that will not align with the ideal, and which could, in potential come to opposing conclusions based on taking the work out of context. While, personally, I tend to lean towards Viertal's viewpoint overall for my own approach to viewing, in no small part due to my interest being so heavily invested in older works, I can't deny the importance of Colins-Hughes perspective since it is painfully obvious that most audience members will not look to context in evaluating artworks, so "misreadings" can gain more traction than "proper" readings and can, perhaps, actually cause some harm by being so.
This being the case, I try to separate my own experience or understanding of the work from both seeing it as "right" and from how I might share or discuss the work with others, There are some works I personally find deeply meaningful, powerful, or important, the experience of which I only share when interacting with others I know well enough to understand something of how they will respond to the concepts being raised, and will be much more reticent in sharing my feelings with those whose manner of appreciation is unknown to me. Unfortunately public critics do not have that option, so in best practice they have to do both, think of the present and stress the larger context as to best inform the audience of the potential upsides and downsides of the experience.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:37 AM on February 13, 2017 [4 favorites]
From the Vulture piece linked under the cut:
I’m not saying that a story about white people’s awakening to the immorality of slavery doesn’t deserve to be told. But in 2017 you can’t use a chorus line of slaves just to decorate that story with unmoored testifying and gospel thrills. Exploring the difficulty — there are other difficulties, too, but they pale by comparison — would be a perfectly good excuse for mounting Big River at Encores! Unfortunately, it is beyond the series’ brief to undermine what it examines. It is left to a program note to supply the crucial information that Neriam Todd, the character upon whom Twain partly based Jim, never made it to freedom, by raft or by will. He was killed by woodsmen on the island where he was hiding. Later, the 11-year-old Samuel Clemens came upon his corpse. The boy fled in horror; still, despite the warning appended to the novel (and the musical) that “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot,” that horror informed every moment of the entertainment that was Twain’s masterpiece. The authors of Big River were not so impressionable, not so finicky. Nor, apparently, are we.posted by tzikeh at 8:44 AM on February 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
None of that is to deny some further complicating factors in this specific revival, such as it not actually being Twain's book, but an adaptation, questions of mounting this revival as opposed to others given all that is involved, and the tone of his response, which struck me as too harsh, only to try and draw focus to what seems to me to be the most complicated underlying issue not being expressly addressed.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:45 AM on February 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by gusottertrout at 8:45 AM on February 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
Big River was written in 1985. It wasn't written in some untouchable past that must be evaluated in context to the morals of the time. It frankly bogles my mind that a modern day director would elide the fact that Big River is an adaptation that should be judged as something distinct from the original text, as the NYT reviewer does.
posted by muddgirl at 8:56 AM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 8:56 AM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
I totally agree that Big River is a very flawed musical, but chiming in to say man oh man do I love the music -- Leavin's Not The Only Way To Go, Waitin' For The Light, River In The Rain, Muddy Water... These are big, full-bodied, throw-your-arms-open-to-the-sky-and-belt songs and have stayed with me far longer than many of the other musicals I saw as a kid. I'd go to a performance of just the music of Big River in a heartbeat although I've never been in a hurry to see the staged show again.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 3:49 PM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 3:49 PM on February 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
Having crewed* a production of Big River, what I can say is: it's complicated.
As a member of the audience, it is hard to like, even if you want to like it, because it will always be controversial. The tone will be weighted by the director's choices, and that of the actors. I tend to believe that if it is well done, the experience is a bubble that holds you, holds your attention on the story and keeps you there until it is over, if you give yourself over to it. You should be cringing with, not at. Thinking about the deeper cultural context and implications should be for later. Minimalism or modernification do it no favors. This musical is bigger than life, not distillation of life.
But even if a given production of it is not popular, it is likely to be revived again because it is FUN to work on. It is challenging and different. The technical set building is fascinating. The songs are a blast to sing, and enjoyable for the musicians to play. Many of the parts are attractive for their uniqueness and difficulty.
On the other hand, I am probably not in the best position to judge the morality or propriety of any musicals at all. My unironically beloved to this day favorite childhood musical is the film version of Paint Your Wagon. Closely followed by the film version of Oliver!
* Props building and costumed stagehand.
posted by monopas at 10:11 PM on February 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
As a member of the audience, it is hard to like, even if you want to like it, because it will always be controversial. The tone will be weighted by the director's choices, and that of the actors. I tend to believe that if it is well done, the experience is a bubble that holds you, holds your attention on the story and keeps you there until it is over, if you give yourself over to it. You should be cringing with, not at. Thinking about the deeper cultural context and implications should be for later. Minimalism or modernification do it no favors. This musical is bigger than life, not distillation of life.
But even if a given production of it is not popular, it is likely to be revived again because it is FUN to work on. It is challenging and different. The technical set building is fascinating. The songs are a blast to sing, and enjoyable for the musicians to play. Many of the parts are attractive for their uniqueness and difficulty.
On the other hand, I am probably not in the best position to judge the morality or propriety of any musicals at all. My unironically beloved to this day favorite childhood musical is the film version of Paint Your Wagon. Closely followed by the film version of Oliver!
* Props building and costumed stagehand.
posted by monopas at 10:11 PM on February 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
The NYTimes has responded to Viertel's letter:
posted by Zephyrial at 6:37 AM on February 14, 2017
We do not hold art works to any sort of litmus test. But theater lives and breathes in the moment of its watching. Many of our critics—of theater and other genres—have found themselves seeing old works through new eyes in this cultural and political moment. Laura did not let that overwhelm her account of a "buoyant" show; she gave due credit to the “fine performances,” the “pleasingly old-school” score, the “clear” staging. But it’s incumbent upon our critics to think out loud about how a stage work might register with a 21st century audience. To do otherwise is to make theater nothing more than a scholastic enterprise. ...I think their wording here (the responsibility of the critic to "think out loud about how a stage work might register with a 21st century audience") is good, and they certainly come off as very reasoned and reasonable compared to Viertel.
Nearly 40 people have commented on the review online, a healthy tally for a show with a brief run. Many agree with your complaint; others don’t. That’s good news to us—a sign that the New York theater and The New York Times are engaged in the big issues of the day.
posted by Zephyrial at 6:37 AM on February 14, 2017
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