Robert Beuth (Photo by Lila Seeley)
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
Moving Arts Theater
Through March 3
RECOMMENDED
Join Huck Finn, his runaway slave companion Jim, the King, the Duke, and the myriad other vivid characters he meets on his trek down the Mighty Mississippi in actor Robert Beuth’s whimsical one-person adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic 1884 novel. By his own admission, Beuth is no ventriloquist; nonetheless, he successfully uses puppets, masks, and his own formidable vocal talents to inhabit the many characters from what Twain himself called “a satirical expose of slavery.” The night I attended, Beuth overcame a few technical, verbal, and physical stumbles with aplomb, thanks to his reverence for Twain’s tome and his earnest geniality.
In a prelude, we meet a curmudgeonly Twain a diminutive puppet whose mouth and limbs Beuth controls. After Twain gives his reluctant blessing to the performer’s endeavor —“Don’t mess up my book,” is his admonishment — Beuth embarks on the tale. It begins in St. Petersburg, Missouri, circa 1835, where the rascally adolescent Huck is under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, both represented by hand-held, mirror-like masks from behind which Beuth delivers the women’s scoldings to Huck. After a torturous encounter with his alcoholic father, personified by a horrific oversized face mask, Huck makes his escape on a raft (a detailed miniature model ) which, unbeknownst to Huck, is inhabited by Miss Watson’s slave Tom, a puppet like that of Twain.
The two embark on a series of (mis)adventures, such as avoiding slavecatchers on a boat whose movements Beuth manipulates with levers, or being victimized by grifters — the Duke and the King — whose abbreviated and mangled Shakespearean production puts them all in danger from aggrieved local townsfolk. All the while Huck struggles against the Christian precepts that would condemn his actions to liberate Jim as “wickedness.” As he prays for the strength to turn him in, he struggles with the dictates of “civilization” as he realizes that Jim is more human than any White man.
Designer Tom Bunderwitz’s multi-layered set consists of sturdy wooden cabinets, drawers, and boxes from which Beuth pulls out puppets, masks, models, and other props used to advance the story. A rolling screen in the middle of the set displays Bunderwitz’s clever projections of the various environs: the forests, islands and mountain cabins et al that Huck and Jim encounter on their sojourn. Bueth’s and fellow designer Mark Steen’s puppet and mask work are intricate, down to a cigar in Twain’s hand, and designer Abra Pilar Flores has expertly crafted appropriate costumes for the puppets. Director Peter Van Norden balances this plethora of elements with skill, while Beuth gives each of the characters distinctive vocal inflections that allow one to overlook the fact that, much to Twain’s chagrin at the start, Beuth is moving his lips.
Moving Arts Theater, 3191 Casitas Ave., Atwater. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 3 pm, Mon., 8 pm; through March 3. https://movingarts.org/project/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/ Running time one hour and twenty minutes with no intermission
