Employing a large cast and imaginative settings in the Smoky Mountains, it recounts the story of John, a strange "witch boy" who upon first beholding the beautiful Barbara Allen immediately falls in love.
Three other alternate verses were used in the 1953 production of "Dark of the Moon" at the Totem Pole Playhouse: I'll sing a song from down our way From the mountains where I'm dwellin' 'bout a witch boy almost got a soul Fer the love of Barbry Allen Was in the merry month of May The greenbuds they was swellin' A witch boy saw a mountain gal And wished that he was human.
Oh can you hear, how loud and clear The church bells are a-ringin' The valley folk from round about Have come to git religion.
Through no doin' of her own, Poor Barbara was unfaithful, She lost her life on the mountain high, And ne'er no more was witch boy human.
And then one morn, before the dawn, The fog rolled down that mountain, It came to rest nigh Barbara's rose, and watered there a briar.
And so a witch and human gal, Had conquered death eternal, And 'neath the darkness of the moon, Their love's entwined forever.
It challenges an audience's comfort level regarding ideas of tolerance, justice, and pressures from diametrically opposed worlds.
[citation needed] In the late 1990s, the town of Honey Grove, Texas launched a campaign to halt the production at the local high school, citing protection of the underage against inappropriate and lewd material.