Mark Twain lives

On Sunday I attended “Mark Twain! Onstage” at the Temple Theatre in Sanford. I was there to write a review, but after interviewing John Chappell (who stars as Twain) for a preview story a few weeks ago, I was also there because I knew it would be laugh-out-loud funny. I wasn’t disappointed. The following review was published in the March 11 edition of the Herald.

Mark Twain lives

John Chappell’s no-frills stand-up creates believable illusion

Some performers delight in the pomp and pageantry of a grand entrance, insisting on the accompaniment of flashing lights, swelling music, outrageous costumes and the occasional circus animal.

John Chappell is not one of these performers. At the March 9 matinee of “Mark Twain! Onstage,” the lights dimmed almost imperceptibly as the actor batted the curtains aside and stumbled into view. Hobbling into the spotlight, Chappell greeted his audience with a bewildered expression that seemed to say, ‘Who are you people?’

Do not be fooled. Appearing in character as Mark Twain, Chappell’s apparent senility stands in stark contrast to his sharp intelligence and satiric wit. His fumbling gestures and exaggerated frailty are part of his recreation of the well-known, early-twentieth-century author who once traveled the country as a storyteller and humorist.

In a show originally performed by the actor Hal Holbrook, Chappell embodies Mark Twain from the moment he assumes the stage until the final curtain call. He retells the author’s humorous stories about travelling in Europe, exploring the American west and riding a steamboat down the Mississippi River. He pokes fun at politicians, journalists and opera singers, and re-enacts an excerpt from the classic novel, “Huckleberry Finn.”

Chappell’s tales are spun with a writer’s words, a comedian’s timing and an actor’s stage presence. His act is a conversation with the audience, and some members fall so completely for the illusion that they offer answers to Twain’s hypothetical questions.

The show’s modest set consists of a leather armchair, an end table and a podium. A small stack of books sits atop the table beside a pitcher of water and a cup of matches. Chappell alternates between leaning heavily against the podium, and shuffling about in a manner that does little to suggest sobriety. When he pours a glass of water for himself, he slops it over the rim of the pitcher and uses his sleeve to wipe it off.

Other pieces of Chappell’s transformation include a refined Deep South accent; a white three-piece suit, complete with gold pocket watch; a believable-from-a-distance prosthetic nose; and a perpetually lit cigar. He says his doctor warned him against smoking, saying it would take ten years off his life. The actor says the admonition frightened him enough to quit “for a good two or three hours” before deciding those extra ten years wouldn’t be worth living without cigars.

Chappell is an expert in comedic timing. He builds suspense by frustrating his audience, stopping mid-story to begin another, and at one point, pretending to fall asleep in his chair. But even the sighs heard from the audience are those of tolerance, as though Twain were a beloved great-uncle.

A master of the one-liner, Chappell compares Nevada’s landscape to “a singed cat” and calls its Carson River “a moist ditch.” Telling of his arrival in Virginia City, he declares the gold rush town “no place for a Presbyterian, so I did not remain one.”

Playing up the stereotype of the scandal-seeking journalist, Chappell claims to have taken a job as a reporter in Virginia City writing about “street fights, saloon brawls and fires. If there weren’t any fires, I started some.”

Although nearly a century old, Chappell’s jabs at politicians evoke the mood of the current campaign season. He compares Congress to an insane asylum full of patients who “talked for weeks without ever getting rid of a single idea.” He asserts that George Washington was the only president ever elected for telling the truth, adding that “when you lie professionally, it’s called politics.”

Chappell also pokes fun at American tourists’ lack of sophistication. He recalls visiting Greece, where he stood atop the Acropolis and took in the view of the Parthenon, asking his tour guide, “What’s this going to be when it’s finished? A hotel?”

When Chappell picks up the novel “Huckleberry Finn” to recount a chapter in the first person, he changes physically to play the part-within-a-part. The actor’s posture becomes youthful, and his accent loses its upper class polish. He tells the tragic story of Finn’s betrayal of Jim, a runaway slave. Finn’s internal struggle between what he’s been told is right, and his natural compassion for his friend, is illustrated by his innocent expression and quivering voice. In the silence following his tale, Chappell drops the novel on the end table where he found it. A small cloud of dust escapes and lingers in the air above it.

Chappell’s illusion is so complete that at the end of the show, as he exits stage left, one feels as though the streets of a frontier town might lie just beyond the curtains.