CHASING THE TWAIN 'PUDD'NHEAD' WILSON' GETS A MUSICAL BOOST AT THE FALCON.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Whether Mark Twain would have preferred ``raconteur'' or ``satirist'' chiseled on his grave we'll leave to the literary scholars to hash out. But those seeking to adapt his works to the stage or screen walk a fine line in trying to imposing a sickle-sharp edge on a great story (adaptors of Charles Dickens face the same problem, only with about three times the number of characters). This becomes especially true when, say, you're determined to plop Whoopi Goldberg into Camelot and say your inspiration is the man who wrote ``A Connecticut Yankee.''

``Pudd'nhead Wilson,'' Twain's 1894 novella, is kind of a ``Huck Finn''/``Prince and the Pauper'' hybrid about a slave raised as a wealthy white, the story has much insight into the nature of class, breeding and first impressions. There's even a little bit of detective work involving an early use of fingerprinting. So Twain was ahead of his time, too.

But it's the folk tale that shines most brightly in Meryl Friedman's adaptation of ``Pudd'nhead,'' playing through April 2 at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank. Given how closely she sticks to her source material, Friedman - the production's director as well as the Falcon's executive producer - might have brought a slightly sharper Twainian edge to the story. Even so, the production is a good yarn, well-acted and energetically spun; 90 minutes, no intermission, no rambling.

Twain's voice comes through most distinctly through a narrator (Gary L. Rowland, fumbling lines a bit), our tour guide through Dawson's Landing, Mo. The year is 1830, and every slave is terrified of being ``sold down the river'' into unfriendlier Southern territory. Especially petrified is Roxy (Kim Leigh Smith), a mulatto slave and the nanny to the Driscoll family.

Roxy may only be one-sixteenth black, but as the narrator says, ``that one-sixteenth outvoted all the other 15 parts.'' Fearing for the safety of her infant son, Chambers (Dwight R. Williams), Roxy switches her baby with the Driscolls' son, Tom (Gerald Rivers), thereby ensuring that the changeling Tom will grow up wealthy, spoiled and - it turns out - rotten to the core. He will, however, be a free man, clearly no guarantee that race or breeding has anything to do with character.

The town's other citizen of note is an amateur scientist named David Wilson (Joshua Wolf Coleman) who blew the prospect of his legal career to confetti when, upon arriving in Dawson's Landing, he made a joke that soared over the collective heads of his neighbors. From that moment on, David became Pudd'nhead Wilson, a nickname it takes him 20 years to live down.

Working with musical director James Vukovich, Friedman has incorporated several original a capella songs inspired by black work songs and spirituals. The music is smoothly integrated and goes a long way toward establishing a tone and setting the scene. Vickilyn Reynolds nearly blows the roof off when leading the chorus in a play-opening rendition of ``Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down.''

Friedman has also cast the Falcon production entirely with African- American actors, a move which, she has said, is designed to work around the story's racial politics. It's an interesting choice, sort of a reverse colorblind casting, that Twain probably would have appreciated. But it also can be distracting, since the plot of ``Pudd'nhead Wilson'' hinges on the fact that at least three of its principles - Roxy, Chambers and certainly Tom - look white. One suspects that, rather than evading the play's themes, Friedman is actually trying to stand them askew.

Or maybe not. Maybe we critics are the real Pudd'nheads here.

The facts

--What: "Pudd'nhead Wilson."

--Where: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank.

--When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3:30 p.m. Sundays; through April 2.

--Tickets: $22 to $30. Call [phone].

--Our rating: Three stars.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Gary L. Rowland, left, is the narrator, and Joshua Wolf Coleman is the title character in ``Pudd'nhead Wilson.''

(2) The use of an all African-American cast is meant to work around the Mark Twain story's racial politics.