Mark Twain's sly humor and timeless American themes course boldly through "Big River," which won the late Roger Miller a much-deserved Tony Award back in 1985. A fresh and peppy staging by the National Players at the Olney Theatre Center meanders a bit when it should be sweeping you up in its currents -- but overall, this "Big River" delivers and makes for a mostly buoyant ride.

The National Players bills itself as "America's longest-running touring company," though it functions more like a graduate program for acting majors. The cast at Olney mostly hovers around college age, which isn't much of a problem when it comes to the young protagonists in this musicalization of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." It does, however, tend to undercut the authority of the grownup enforcers of entrenched hypocrisies that the novel targets.

It's hard to see Twain's do-gooder moral guardians, civic-minded anti-abolitionists and various dissolute wastrels as threats to Huck and runaway slave Jim when those grown-ups are carrying themselves like parental caricatures in a high school lampoon.

Director Eve Muson counteracts the casting hand she was dealt by emphasizing the artifice of the story. When one plot twist reveals the presence of an impostor, for instance, the players turn toward the audience in mock surprise as in one of the Mighty Mississippi's old show boat melodramas. It's funny, all right, but such tactics distract from Twain's powerful portrait of two innocent fugitives aboard a rickety raft to freedom.

Musically, this production is on surer ground. Even with a pit orchestra reduced to four musicians playing a variety of instruments, the homespun flavors and gospel-tinged soulfulness of Miller's affable songs come across. Musical director Aaron Broderick sees that the score receives more than lip service.

The first 20 minutes or so on stage is more touch-and-go. We meet that rapscallion Huck (Sam Ludwig), who flees the good Christian society of the Widow Douglas for some anti-social hell-raising with his band of lost boys, only to be reclaimed by his long-absent Pap. Pap Finn is more than a social drinker, it turns out, and not fit company for a boy. So Huck is forced to fake his own death and seek refuge on a deserted Mississippi island, where he crosses paths with the runaway slave, Jim.

Jim is strongly played by Isaiah Johnson, the only Equity actor in the cast. Johnson more than makes peace with Twain's brand of irony, amplifying both Jim's childish bewilderment and his almost paternal sense of transcendent wisdom.

He also has one of the most resonant singing voices on stage, and "Big River" at last reveals its professional pedigree when he and Ludwig join forces for the lovely duet to racial harmony, "Worlds Apart," and the fragile beauty of "River in the Rain."

Other musical highlights in the show are delivered by Deborah Lubega, in particular. But the company as a whole is distinguished by strong solo voices in the more spiritual numbers like "The Crossing" and "How Blest We Are."

Choreographer Boo Killebrew keeps the occasional dances fittingly rough-hewn and more expressive than creative.

Jeremy W. Foil's plank-filled set conveys the various settings such as docks, frame houses and wood sheds, even breaking apart at points to become Huck and Jim's floating river sanctuary.

The script by William Hauptman, by the way, does not soften the nature or intent of Twain's original dialogue, which includes some usage of what is now called "the N word." For parents, teaching moments don't usually arrive in such tuneful packages.

There have been more consistent productions of "Big River" than this, but Olney Theatre gets it mostly right. You'll feel the lure of that beckoning ride to freedom and racial harmony, and you'll go out happy that you hopped aboard.

"Big River" continues on the Olney Theatre Center's Historic Stage (2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road) through Aug. 3. Tickets are $25, with discounts available for groups. Call the box office at 301-924-3400 or go to olneytheatre.org.

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