Some of you have seen the play, “Big River”, now playing in New York. This setting of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn is well done.

The music is exceptional. For days after I saw it, I found myself blurting out, “Arkansas, Arkansas, O how I love Arkansas.” I would find myself humming the tune and trying to remember the words of that haunting piece.

In one scene, two river rogues who have commandeered Huck and his barge, schemed to put together a sort of vaudeville act for river towns. To arouse curiosity, crowd and swindle 50 cents out of people for tickets to what doesn’t amount to much sing about a strange creature who has, apart from some vulgar descriptions of anatomy, “An eye in the middle of her nose”, and the crowds gathered in, spending money they could ill afford, attracted by the curios…