The wry wit of one of the world’s favorite authors comes to life in Mark Twain: Traveling. This seventy-minute, one-person performance, compiled by and featuring actor Cal Pritner, is a mostly comic, occasionally serious work that focuses on the author’s decidedly irreverent non-fiction travel books. The show represents more than five years of research by Pritner on Mark Twain as a traveler, talker and writer. The performance draws from Twain’s speeches, his travel books and from occasional quotes.
“Lots of folks don’t realize that Mark Twain’s first two major books, the ones that first made him famous in America and in Europe, were travel books,” Pritner says. “His book Innocents Abroad was revolutionary as a travel book.”
According to Pritner, prior to Twain’s writing, American travel writers speaking of Europe and the Holy Land were totally reverent ... they said what they were “supposed” to say about the great art and the sites like the Acropolis in Athens. “Twain was totally irreverent and people loved it after they got over the shock,” Pritner says.
Workshop
Pritner offers, in conjunction with Mark Twain: Traveling, a free
forty-minute performance, also as Twain, Mark Twain: Unlearning Racism.
Or, a host may want to explore having him provide a workshop based on his book,
co-authored with Louis Colaianni: How to Speak Shakespeare.