Here's Frank Rich's additional commentary on the 
issue. I think he nails it.  As most of you 
probably know but perhaps not all, Rich was NY 
Times theater critic for many years (and is a 
fanatical theater buff) but has since gone on to 
be a cultural and political columnist, first for 
the Times and currently for New York Magazine.

"I am on record as having had mixed feelings about 
the musical "Big River," which I described as "a 
mixture of the modestly engaging and the tolerably 
bland" when it first opened on Broadway in 1985. I 
have not seen the Encores revival running this 
weekend but, really, the last half of the Times 
review, which questions the wisdom of producing a 
show that is nothing if not faithful to "The 
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," is the kind of 
politically correct dogma that liberals too should 
find embarrassing, particularly in these Trump 
times. Yes, Mark Twain has always been "ill-timed" 
and an "awkward fit" for smug and humorless 
Americans. That's the whole point."


Steve Hoffman, Takoma Park


On 2/15/2017 4:31 PM, Tracy Wuster wrote:
> Passing along from humor scholar Pete Kunze:
>
> Twain is alive and raisin' hell on Broadway:
>
> http://www.playbill.com/article/ny-times-responds-to-
> producers-complaint-about-big-river-review
>