Mark Twain is Alive, Shakespeare is the Question

By John Farrell, Curtain Call Writer

Everybody knows Sam Clemens.

Sure, he has been dead for more than 100 years, but Hal Holbrook brought him back to life 60 years ago. His linen suit and bushy eyebrows, his wry humor and slick way around a sentence are still a part of everyday American life.

Will Shakespeare, on the other hand, well, we know he wrote all those great plays (or do we?) but as for his appearance, his habits, his way of speaking – well, he was an actor and probably a bit of a chameleon. So, except for his plays, he’s pretty much forgotten by the time he died in Stratford upon Avon, (perhaps from partying too hearty with Ben Jonson).

It’s the question of authorship that drives Is Shakespeare Dead?, the one-man show starring Carl Wawrina at Long Beach Shakespeare’s Richard Goad Theatre through April 19.

Directed and adapted by Helen Borgers from writings by Twain, the show is entertaining and even a little enlightening, though the theories that Twain espouses, that Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s work and used Will as a beard, isn’t given credence by modern scholarship.

But the argument isn’t the point. What matters is Wawrina’s sparkling, tasty performance, a performance based on Holbrook, no doubt, and on what little film of Twain exists. Wawrina brings Twain to life, walking about on the simple stage, talking to the audience face to face, making his case like a prosecutor arguing to a jury, an amiable but insistent argument filled with humorous asides. Mind you, the argument doesn’t work: Twain thought that no man with so little education could have accomplished what Shakespeare did, forgetting that he did much the same.

The costume design by Dana Leach and convincing make-up by Anjolie Tate made the impersonation nearly perfect. (Well, one of Wawrina’s bushy white eyebrows went loose at the end of the evening, but it didn’t affect his entertaining performance.)

Three more performances are scheduled, and much more as well as part of LB Shakespeare’s month-long celebration of all things Shakespeare. Those things include a radio-style presentation of A Midsummer’s Nights Dream and a production of Shakespeare: Sharkdonicus, an adaptation of Titus Andronicus by Fiona Austin and Lauren Velasco, directed by Austin and featuring shark puppets. (Andronicus is Shakespeare’s most violent play, and audiences are warned that this production will be bloody, and funny.)

Tickets for Is Shakespeare Dead? and Shakespeare: Sharkdonicus are $10. A Midsummer’s Nights Dream is free of charge. Is Shakespeare Dead? will be performedApril 17 and 18 at 8 p.m., and April 19 at 2 p.m. Midsummer is April 23 at 8 p.m. Sharkdonicus is April 24 and 25 at 8 p.m., and April 26 at 2 p.m.

Venue: Richard Goad Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach

Details: (562)997-1494; www.LBShakespeare.org