‘Pudd’nhead’ Captures Twain’s Irony

These days, Mark Twain scores low on the political-correctness scale. Once classroom staples, Twain’s books are routinely yanked from school libraries because of their allegedly racist content.

Perhaps Meryl Friedman chose an all-African American cast for her stage adaptation of Twain’s “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” at the Falcon Theatre, to somehow redress this perceived racism. And indeed, the dread “n” word, used profusely in both Twain’s original and Friedman’s adaptation, seems marginally less ugly when spoken by a person of color. However, apart from that distinction, the conceit behind Friedman’s one-toned casting is blurry, more a stylistic fillip than a firm philosophical foundation.

As for the charges of racism, scratch Twain’s period vernacular and you will almost certainly expose a deeply egalitarian core. That is especially true of “Pudd’nhead Wilson.” Published in 1893, almost 10 years after “Huckleberry Finn,” Twain’s novel about a slave and a white aristocrat switched in infancy carries the freighted message that color is only skin deep, and that character is largely dictated by the accidents of birth and circumstance.

That was a revolutionary message in its day and required a certain amount of daring on the part of Twain, then a literary lion of almost 60 who could easily have traveled the road of artistic complacency. Yet Twain, no proselytizer, was crafty enough to couch the controversy in an action-packed mix of melodrama, folk humor and social commentary, wrapping it all up with a Perry Mason-esque courtroom sequence that seems surprisingly modernistic.

Lifted almost verbatim from the original, Friedman’s adaptation relies heavily on a Narrator (Gary L. Rowland) to relate the complex events of Twain’s tale. The result is cumbersome and overly simplistic, a Cliffs Notes version of the text.

This tack serves Friedman far better as a director. Her broadly entertaining staging, interspersed with her own original gospel songs, performed a capella under the assured musical direction of James Vukovich, captures Twain’s acid irony without a missed beat--thanks largely to her richly talented cast, which chews the scenery with comic gusto while never erring on the side of excess.

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Marcos Alvarez’s rough-hewn set, Peter Gottlieb’s subtle lighting and Laura Brody’s versatile costumes provide a handsome backdrop for this convoluted period piece. Joshua Wolf Coleman delivers a wryly cerebral turn in the title role, while Kim Leigh Smith, who plays Roxy, the slave woman who switches her own light-skinned infant with her owner’s son, captures the bitter dichotomy of a woman for whom conventional morality is a luxury she can ill afford.

* “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.: Sundays, 3:30 p.m. Ends April 2. $22 to $30. (818) 955-8101. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.