Uncle Tom's Cabin

I have long been curious to see a production of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” I somehow missed the Mint Theater’s 1997 rendition, so when I heard that the Metropolitan Playhouse had scheduled it as part of a season about stereotypes I was determined to be there. Director Alex Roe has staged it with considerable invention given the tiny stage and 10-person cast, and he’s used the complete 1852 text by George L. Aiken, adapted from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel. He’s also brought a contemporary sensibility to the work, having blacks play whites and vice versa and directing the actors to mine the material for its emotional truth rather than play it in the original floridly melodramatic style. The result is absolutely fascinating.

Though “Cabin” still holds the record as the “most-often performed American drama,” according to the theater’s press release, I imagine most Americans are familiar with the story and characters thanks to Jerome Robbins’ superb ballet adaptation for “The King and I.” I was surprised to discover that Simon Legree is not the slave owner chasing Eliza across the ice. He doesn’t even show up until Act 5 of this six-act play. Aiken begins with the story of slaves Eliza and George, who are owned by separate masters. George, abused by his owner, decides to flee to the north, where he will earn enough money to buy the freedom of his wife and young son, who have a kindly owner. But Eliza’s owner is in debt, and when she learns her master is being forced to sell her son as part of paying it off, Eliza also flees. Her famous river crossing ends Act 1. Other stories are interwoven. There is “Uncle” Tom, a deeply religious older slave who is also sold off by Eliza’s owner to the well-meaning St. Clare, who gives Tom to his young daughter, the saintly Eva. Mixed in this story are St. Clare’s cousin Ophelia, a religious Vermont spinster who disapproves of slavery but can’t abide blacks, and Topsy, the unruly teenage slave she educates and ultimately adopts.

Stowe and Aiken are forthright about all kinds of issues that later generations would refrain from discussing. Masters sleep with their female slaves in coercive relationships. Slaves are proud of their deep hatred for whites. An unrepentant unbeliever is a better man than some Christians. Bigotry isn’t innate (Rodgers and Hammerstein got in trouble for that one nearly 100 years later). Though stereotypical dialect is employed, it’s used for uneducated characters, black or white. There are also educated black characters who speak impeccable English. Yes, it’s clear that the piece is aimed at educating whites, and the authors use white characters as the gateway for audiences in an inevitably condescending manner. But compared, say, to “Gone With the Wind,” “Cabin” is far more honest. It’s like watching a movie made before the Hollywood Production Code came in.

Roe has assembled a tight ensemble. Standouts include Marcie Hendersen, who gives the virtuous Eliza a slight Brechtian edge that cuts the sentiment; Alex Marshall-Brown, who tears into Topsy with explosive force; Rick Delaney, who does vividly opposing work as the evil slave owner Haley and the more-congenial St. Clare; and George Lee Miles, who endows Tom with an underlying fierceness that makes his religiosity believable and helps us to at least understand some of the character’s self-defeating choices. Richard Waits offered a strongly emotional George and a slyly duplicitous Gumption Cute, a rapscallion character added by Aiken, presumably for comic relief, but Waits has since left the production (Rafael Jordan is his replacement).

Seen in close proximity with “A Free Man of Color” and “The Scottsboro Boys,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” definitely felt like a foundational text. It tells us much about where we’ve come from and how far we may still have to go.

Presented by and at Metropolitan Playhouse, 220 E. Fourth St., NYC. Nov. 19–Dec. 12. Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (No performance Wed. and Thu., Nov. 24 and 25.) (212) 995-5302 or www.metropolitanplayhouse.org.