Mark Twain and the Drama

ROBERT A. WIGGINS University of California, Davis, California

of literary influence probably never admit of a final Qsatisfactory answer, but, perhaps for this very reason, they continue
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to attract considerable scholarly speculation in the study of most authors. Commentaries on Mark Twain have been no exception; indeed, almost every attempt to understand his art has ultimately come to some concern with the amount and quality of particular influences upon this humorist and his achievement. The frontier, his early reading, his mother and his wife, Southwest humor, and a host of others have received varying amounts of attention in proportion as they have appeared to be significant. In this critical canon, however, there seems to be an important oversight. Little attention has been given to the possible influence of the drama upon Twain and his literary development. The present study is an attempt partially to fill this gap by examining Twain's interest in the drama and discovering what possible effect it might have had. Edward Wagenknecht's opinion seems generally accepted. In his book Mar\ Twain: The Man and His Wor\ he says, "Like most persons of literary bent, Mark Twain enjoyed the theater, though he was not a consistent theater-goer, and the stage was in no sense an abiding passion 1 with him, as it was with Dickens." There follows only a scant paragraph listing Twain's theatrical experience without suggesting that it played any role at all in his artistic achievement. On the other hand, nearly all of Twain's critics, including Mr. Wagenknecht, comment upon the theatrical element in Twain's personalityhis fondness for distinctive costume, his white suits and crimson Oxford robe, his tendency to dramatize himself, and his skill in engaging his audience, public or private. There would seem to be considerable of the theatrical in the make-up of Sam Clemens, and it would be curious, indeed, if some of it were not reflected in the writing of Mark Twain.
1

New Haven, 193^, p. 38.

There is no indication that the drama figured significantly in Twain's reading; the only dramatist that it is certain he read was Shakespeare. However, literary drama is not really our concern here. Twain's experience with the form was in the popular theater of his day a world of make-believe spectacle, pageantry, burlesque, and comedy that has left scarcely a ripple on the tide of American letters. Twain's frontier was not entirely cut off from this popular theater. As Bernard DeVoto points out in Mar\ Twain's America, the itinerant actor 2 was already a stock figure in the forties. About this same time Twain saw his first minstrel show, which he later described: "It must have been in the early forties. It was a new institution. In our village of Hannibal we had not heard of it before, and it burst upon us as a glad and stunning 3 surprise." Twain's vivid description of the Christy Minstrels and their many imitators sounds a nostalgic note that perhaps accounts for his extravagant praise of it as "the genuine nigger show, the extravagant nigger showthe show which to me had no peer and whose peer has not yet 4 arrived, in my experience." During this time and later as a pilot Twain must also have seen many melodramas and minstrels on the showboats that plied up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries. As he grew older Twain's experience with the theater increased. A letter he wrote home from New York when he was seventeen tells of his having witnessed several plays, including The Gladiator, starring Edwin 5 Forrest. And a treasured memory of his Western years was of Ada Isaacs Menken in Mazeppa. As drama undoubtedly both performances left something to be desired. R. M. Bird's play had little intrinsic merit, serving as a vehicle of pageantry to display Forrest's histrionic breast-beating, and the adaptation from Byron was obscured by a generous view of Menken's charms, particularly in the climactic scene when she appeared partially robed and tied to the back of a wild horse. We may judge that Twain grew somewhat critical of melodramatic

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treatments of heroic themes. performed by

His review of Ingomar, the Barbarian as

* Boston, 1932, p. 33. 'Bernard DeVoto, ed., Mark. Twain in Eruption (New York, 1940), p. 110; hereinafter referred to as Eruption. 'Ibid., p. 118. * A. B. Paine, ed., Mar\ Twain's betters (New York, 19:7), p. 26.

Maguire's troupe in Virginia City took the form of a burlesque synopsis. This was apparently only one of several such satiric reviews of performances given during the season at the Virginia City Opera House. Another form of theatrical experience was Twain's many appearances as a performer on the lecture platform. From his first professional lecture in 1868 with varying frequency throughout the rest of his life his appearances reading and speaking kept him in close touch with his audience. Although he objected to the inconvenience of traveling about the lecture circuit, he apparently delighted in his role as a public entertainer. Certainly his success testifies to his competence in one branch of theatrical performance. That this experience was essentially theatrical Twain would have agreed. In writing about his tour with Cable he tried to explain the difference between reading and reciting by saying that "without the book you absorb the character and presently become the man himself, just as is the case with the actor."" This type of delivery seems to have accounted for his success as a lecturer; and his dissertation upon the pause, the key to correct timing in oral delivery, concerns one of the fundamental skills involved in acting. Besides lecturing, Twain appeared as an actor in private theatrical performances. Indeed, private theatricals seem to have been a favorite form of entertainment in his family. Some of the performances were quite ambitious. The dramatization of The Prince and the Pauper, in which Twain took the role of Miles Hendon, was performed several times 7 before an audience of eighty-four. And finally Twain made numerous attempts at writing drama, one of which, The Gilded Age, proved to be immensely popular. His collaboration with Bret Harte in writing Ah Sin is well known. The title, which was also the name of the chief character, a Chinaman, indicates sufficiently why it never merited even a first performance. Twain collaborated also with Howells in writing The American Claimant as a play exploiting the earlier success of the character of Colonel Sellers in The Gilded Age. Failing to be performed, it was later reworked by Twain as a novel. Another play, Simon Wheeler, the Amateur Detective, Twain thought could not fail; but again no producer was willing to risk his own money. These
* Eruption, p. 224. * Autobiography (New York, 1924), II, 61.

were his most important attempts at writing drama, but he frequently made starts on others and talked about the possibility of dramatizing Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee. And among his minor sketches there are other treatments of the dramatic form, usually burlesque or satire, such as the review of Ingomar, the Barbarian, already mentioned. The evidence, while it does not suggest what Mr. Wagenknecht terms an abiding passion, seems to indicate a more than ordinary interest in the theater and certainly considerable experience as observer, performer, and playwright. Considering how closely Twain's personal experience was usually reflected in his art, one would be surprised to find no suggestion of his theatrical background as well. How that experience might be manifested in his work is largely speculative, but certain qualities of his writing show possible indebtedness that is difficult to account for otherwise. Twain's major attemptsThe Gilded Age, Ah Sin, Simon Wheeler, and The American Claimanthave not been published and are not available for examination. However, secondary evidence indicates their general characteristics. They were all comedies, each constructed about one comic character. Dramatic plot was negligible, consisting of a sequence of comic situations involving the chief character. The plays were patently designed to get laughs by almost any means, and thereby they betray their commercial character. Generally the same criticism may be made of them as of most of his fiction: they do not show any significant ability at organizing and conceiving the total work. Twain apparently had no sense of dramatic structurethe arranging of plot to achieve a single total

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effect and the ordering of events chiefly for their contribution toward this controlling design. In this respect he invites comparison with Dickens, who was much more significantly influenced by the theater but who also in structure chose to carry on the picaresque tradition. The form of Twain's fiction recalls his practice in playwriting of concentrating upon the scene or episode as the chief structural element. His fiction abounds in memorable scenes remembered out of their context. The whitewashing of the fence might as well have been at the end as at the beginning of Tom Sawyer. Numerous other instances spring readily to mind: the turnip dinner and the candle-in-the-stove scenes in The Gilded Age, the tournament in A Connecticut Yankee, Colonel Sherburn's handling of the mob in Huckleberry Finn. This method of construction and its relation to the drama may be observed in a rudimentary form in some of his early sketches. "The Capitoline Venus" (Sketches New and Old), for example, relates how a successful art swindle took place. To tell the story Twain breaks it up into six short scenes, which he labels as such: "SceneAn Artist's Studio in Rome," for example. Each brief scene contains no narration, but only dialogue between two persons, except for the fifth, which has two lines labeled to be spoken by a "Chorus o f Voices." Several other stories and sketches employ this device, even to labeling the speakers. Among them are "Cannibalism in the Cars" (Sketches New and Old), "A Helpless Situation" (Th e $30,000 Bequest), and "An Encounter with an Interviewer" (To m Sawyer Abroad). The form of these sketches unmistakably shows their kinship with at least the superficial structure of the drama. Even in his more important fiction there are evidences of a carryover of the dramatic form. Episodes are often introduced as though Twain were listing the properties for the scene. Here is such an example from The Gilded Age: A dreary old haircloth sofa against the wall; a few damaged chairs; the small table the lamp stood on; the crippled stovethese things constituted the furniture of the room. There was no carpet on the floor; on the wall were occasional square-shaped interruptions of the general tint of the plaster which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the house 8 but there were none now. There were no mantel ornaments _____ Directions are given not only for the setting, but for the costuming of his characters as well. "The Colonel's 'stovepipe' hat was napless and shiny with much polishing, but nevertheless it had an almost convincing expression about it of having been just purchased new. The rest of his clothing was napless and shiny, too, but it had the air of being entirely 9 satisfied with itself and blandly sorry for other people's clothes." Twain's method of advancing his story may also be characterized as dramatic. Narrative description and links between episodes are kept short. The plot advances by means of action and dialogue within the scenes. The dialogue is usually an exchange between only two characters, even when others are involved in the scene.
'Author's National Ed., X, 87. * Ibid., p. 86.

Huck, for example, speaks directly only when he is one of the two conversationalists; on other occasions he merely reports but does not participate in dialogue between other characters, even though he is present and, for the sake of realism, should occasionally have something to say. Twain himself was fond of talk; his background of oral story-telling and his quick ear for dialect undoubtedly account for some of the quantity of good talk that fills his books. The average of his novels, for example, from T he Gilded Age through Puddn'head Wilson is 80 per cent dialogue by page count. But his method of setting the scene in a paragraph or two and then allowing his characters to perform largely without comment and analysis would seem to indicate that he conceived of himself as an audience reporting the dramatic scene he visualized. Our conclusion would appear to be strengthened when we further examine Twain's style. Sense impressions are almost entirely confined to visual ones except for sound, which is restricted to human speech. Twain almost never gives us the feel or taste or smell of things, and when he does they are usually of unpleasant sensations. Much has been made by some critics of Twain's references to offensive odors, but it would be

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wrong to assert that they are frequent. In all of Tom Sawyer there is only one such instance, which concerns a dead cat. Typically Twain keeps before his reader a visual impression kept in motion by verb forms and bits of stage business. Chapter II of Tom Sawyer, the episode of whitewashing the fence, will serve to illustrate. Two paragraphs of narration set the scene before a board fence; thereafter action progresses through dialogue and visual-kinetic narrative links of stage business such as these: Sighing he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. . . . Jim was only humanthis attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound.... Ben Rogers hove in sight presently.... His right hand, meantime describing stately circles,for it was representing a forty-foot wheel. . . . Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him.. . . Ben stopped nibbling his apple.Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth stepped back to note the effect added a touch here and therecriticised the effect againBen watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. . . . And while the late steamer "Big Missouri" worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned 10 the slaughter of more innocents. In the entire scene there is no mention of how the hot summer day felt, or smelled, or soundedno lazy drone of insects nor smell of dust nor slap and rasp of wet brush on boards nor sharp sweet taste of the apple, only the way things looked to the observer, the sight and motion of things. In the creation of character, too, Twain reveals a sense of the dramatic. He never drew a character in the round. All of his major characters are dominated by one chief characteristic and tend to be dramatic types rather than complete individuals. Huck is the free vagabond, Tom the romantic adventurer, Sellers the optimistic schemer, Puddn'head Wilson the pessimistic observerall are easily identified by a single attribute. And it is their external appearance, behavior, and reaction that are depicted, rarely their mental processes or emotional responses, and almost never is their analysis or comment upon them. The only instance to the contrary in Huckleberry Finn, for example, is Huck's inner moral struggle in one brief scene where he chooses to go to hell by helping Jim escape. Minor characters are usually little more than stage props and supers who add realism to the setting or assist the star performers. Obedstown, Tennessee, in the opening of The Gilded Age is vividly impressed upon the reader by the local characters perched on a fence rail, dressed uniformly in jeans and calico vests, hands thrust into pockets, tobacco cuds shifted from jaw to jaw; they are part of the setting. And similarly in Tom Sawyer Sid exists chiefly as a dramatic foil to Tom. From such evidence as this it would be difficult to make a case for Twain as a frustrated dramatist, nor could one assert that he consciously formulated literary principles founded upon his theatrical experience. But this experience does seem to have had some bearing upon the technique he employed in the writing of fiction. In his lavish use of dialogue, in his structural emphasis upon the scene, and his settings which often read like stage directions, in his attention to the costuming and appearance of character and bits of stage business they are assigned, in the dramatic scenes by which
"Author's National Ed., XII, 26-31.

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his characters are remembered, and, above all, in the visual-kinetic style of rendering the episodes, Twain suggests considerable indebtedness to the theater. Though he cannot be said to have shown an "abiding passion," the drama would appear to have been unjustly neglected as a probable influence upon the development of his narrative technique.

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