BIG RIVER: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN []

The Roundabout Theater Company at the American Airlines Theater, 227 W. 42nd St. (212) 719-1300.

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IT’S an unexpected honey.

I’m talking about the revival of the late Roger Miller’s 1985 hit “Big River,” based on Mark Twain’s classic “Huckleberry Finn,” which opened last night at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre.

So what? Musicals are always being revived, but this no simple revival. It’s a completely new approach to the show’s casting and staging, for it involves hearing, hearing-impaired and deaf actors.

While all the actors sign their performances, some have their talking and singing done, unobtrusively, by others. It works.

It takes a moment to acclimate yourself – you may look around to see just where the voice is coming from – but then this unusual process simply becomes a kind of alternative universe.

The music has a charming country bounce, with occasional gospel. But Miller, a disciple of Hank Williams, was also a wizard with words, and the songs come out beautifully.

The picaresque story, adroitly adapted by William Hauptman, of Huck, the runaway slave Jim, and their wild adventures on and around the Mississippi, is tricky enough to stage without the added complications of signing. But Jeff Calhoun, the director and choreographer, has done a marvelous job.

With the contrivance of Ray Klausen, who has devised an ingenious and visually attractive setting of blown-up pages from the novel, and the deliciously simple costumes from David R. Zyla, Calhoun has the show running like a song.

Charismatic performances from Daniel Jenkins as Mark Twain, Tyrone Giordano as the perky Huck and Michael McElroy as a soul-voiced Jim, are picture perfect.

A certain poignancy is added by the 40-year-old Jenkins revisiting “Big River,” having played Huck in the original production 18 years ago.

Now, in a seamless bond with Giordano, Jenkins’ Twain not only acts as narrator but provides Huck’s voice.

That said, the essential joy of this show is in the spirit of its total ensemble.

The big character parts are superbly distributed. Pap – Huck’s drunk bully of a father – is given by two actors, Troy Kotsur (deaf) and Lyle Kanouse (hearing) and their dual interplay instantly establishes Calhoun’s staging method.

Kotsur and Kanouse then go on to give lively, rapscallion performances of Twain’s braggart villains, Duke and King, with Duke’s voice meticulously supplied by Walter Charles.

It’s a fun evening that Twain himself would have loved, but also a very moving one, in ways that might even have surprised the author.

The most moving moment comes in silence – when the chorus reprises the song “Waitin’ for the Light to Shine.” Suddenly the orchestra and singing stop while the ensemble continues, for 30 seconds or so, to sign.

Silence envelops the theater – you could hear a pin drop, a heart break. A telling message has been gently delivered.