Mark Twain, Unknown
And Uncensored
By Cynthia Citron
Every once in a while an actor will come along who can capture and define a specific role so uniquely as to make that character his own forever---or at least for that generation. I’m thinking particularly of Jose Ferrer as Cyrano de Bergerac. Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins. And Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain.
You can imagine that it would take some chutzpah then for a little-known actor to take the stage in a one-man show called “The Mark Twain You Don’t Know.” But surprisingly, an American-born actor from Australia does it---and damn well, at that!
Chris Wallace does not attempt to BE Mark Twain, instead he uses Twain’s many voices to tell stories that Twain intended never to publish, or stories that he stipulated should be published after his death. And in the case of his “Letters from the Earth,” some 500 years after his death!
These “Letters” are Twain’s take on religion down through the ages, and the stories from the Bible in particular. They are told in a dialogue between God and his archangels: Gabriel, Michael, and Satan. Stipulating that “the law of God is the law of nature,” God begins by defining the immutable natures of animals and man and noting that these creatures are just a divine “experiment.” Satan, who refutes God’s explanations, comments that, as far as “reasoning” goes, “nobody uses it where religion is concerned.” And, noting various contradictions in God’s behavior, Satan adds, “God always was unstable---except in his advertising.” Twain was virulent in his opposition to the dogmas and hypocrisies of religion, and one can well understand why he didn’t want this treatise published until he had been dead 500 years!
In his next sequence, Wallace depicts a ribald conversation from the year 1601 between a high-pitched, imperious Queen Elizabeth I and some of her contemporaries, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, et al. The piece revolves around the question of who had let go with a monstrous fart, with the Queen questioning each one in turn and receiving elaborate responses from all those present. A supposedly hilarious spoof of the times and manners of the period (it doesn’t hold up well 400 years later), it is titled “1601. A Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors,” and Twain had intended for it never to be published.
The highlight of the evening, however, is Wallace’s version of Huckleberry Finn, a mini-play in many voices, with a little singing and dancing to boot. Condensed though it is, it captures the essence and the humor of Twain’s greatest work, with Wallace’s songs well in keeping with Twain’s intent.
Finally, Act I and Act II each end with dramatically moving paeans to the dead. First “The War Prayer,” in which a somber stranger interrupts the festivities celebrating the young men about to go off to the Civil War to fight for the Confederacy with a recitation of the horrors that will ensue for both sides. And, at the last, an entry from his diary in which Twain expresses his inconsolable grief at the loss of his daughter Jean.
Wallace, who is a charming performer, has done well by Twain. He is no competition for the title-holder, Hal Holbrook, but then, he doesn’t try to be. His interpretations of isH Twain’s “unknown” writings carry the evening.
Chris Wallace’s one-man show was presented for three nights, June 22-24 at the Pierson Playhouse in Temescal Canyon in the Pacific Palisades.
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