Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a major change agent in the course of American history, and the drama based on the book was nearly as influential when it moved to the national stage. The most popular adaptation, by the actor George L. Aiken, was first produced in 1852, and it packed in audiences for 300 performances when it moved to New York City a year later, in an era when 14 to 40 nights constituted an average run. Perhaps as many as 50 troupes were carrying some version of the show on the road by the 1870s; 12 Uncle Tom companies were still touring in 1927. Many of the productions combined the story with features of the blackface minstrel shows that also remained on the American stage well into the 20th century and survived even longer in such offshoots as the beloved radio and television show Amos ’n’ Andy.

So one might consider the sardonic theatrical pastiche that goes by the name of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life as a continuation of both stage tradition and Mrs. Stowe’s polemics. The script by Floraine Kay and Randolph Curtis Rand, which takes its subtitle from Charles Darwin rather than from Stowe, was first staged in 1997 in New York. Barely cloaking the nation’s current racial tensions in period dress, the show interweaves past and contemporary voices. And it carries a message no less potent than that of the Uncle Tom shows of the 19th century or Mrs. Stowe’s depiction of the devilish ways in which the practice of chattel slavery shaped our national character.

Under the direction of Jeffrey Mousseau (who incorporated a new cast member, David Scott, four days before opening after the original actor fell ill), the result is a raucous affair that makes an impression in bits and pieces rather than as a coherent whole. The rudimentary scenic design mimics an old-fashioned theater, with a proscenium-arch of red draperies hung from the ceiling and the patrons seated out front. Five actors play 40 different roles, rotating the characters among them, regardless of color or gender. Thus the angelic Little Eva is portrayed by both women in the cast, Penny Frank and Ramona Alexander, but also by Scott, who stands 6’10’’ in the long white gown and bonnet. All the novel’s beloved characters are passed around: the godly Uncle Tom; Eliza and her rag doll of a baby fleeing across the ice; the equivocal Mr. St. Clare; Topsy, the wild child who was snatched from her family as a baby and raised by speculators; and the villain, Simon Legree.

The show is both a dramatic narrative and a commentary on how the pernicious traditions of slavery survived even after Emancipation. The most effective dramatic scenes are the few that are played straight, in the manner of Aiken’s 1852 melodrama, and intended to enlist the sympathies of the audience. The first act holds together, but by act two, the intellectual meandering has become too scattered in a script that tries to tie together impassioned pleas from Mrs. Stowe, James Baldwin, and Oscar Wilde, along with exaggerated personifications of the ethnic stereotypes. There’s an overlay of traditional music — think " Oh, Them Golden Slippers " — and some rudimentary choreography to replicate the minstrel-show routines. More effective is the staging of the New Orleans slave auction to the beat of tango rhythms.

Perhaps the script tries too hard, or maybe the cast of five simply get worn out by the incessant costume changes. The constant preaching numbs you to the injustices suffered by the slaves at the hands of the " pious " Christians. And inasmuch as this adaptation of the characters and situations of Mrs. Stowe’s imagination, like those of 150 years ago, has been gerrymandered to a purpose, you might well wonder whether the audiences of present-day Boston who buy tickets to a show with such a title are not already among the converted.