ROUGHING IT
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No, the drag comes in the telling. Not the whole telling, mind you (you’ll notice I’m being very namby-pamby here: I want you to know I like this show despite its flaws), but in certain important aspects of it. Roughing It is still just a little too rough to relax with.
Adapted by Goodman Theatre dramaturge Tom Creamer from Twain’s book about his frontier adventures, Roughing It builds a series of picaresque vignettes around young Sam Clemens’s attempt to strike it rich in Nevada. We follow along, sharing the ride west from Saint Louis; chasing gold through the mountains; getting hijacked first by robbers, and then by the law; waiting out a snowstorm at Mrs. Blaine’s way station in the middle of nowhere. Most of all, we meet people and hear stories: about tree climbing buffalo, famous funerals, mining-camp skulduggery, and the time Horace Greeley made the mistake of asking a certain stagecoach driver if he couldn’t perhaps go a little faster.
Clay Rouse and Joel Van Liew are similarly dull in their several roles; it’s especially annoying to see them fail to be dangerous or sinister as desperadoes. Jeffrey Swan Jones is just kind of vague as young Clemens’s pal, Bemis.
