Raft of hope on the 'Big River' by Sean Mitchell
Fueled by the show-stopping voices of Rufus Bonds Jr., as the runaway slave Jim, and Gwen Stewart, as the captured slave Alice, this revival of the 1985 Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" at times shook the Taper like a gospel church to the sound of Roger Miller's powerful country spirituals about freedom denied and regained in Mark Twain's racially divided America.