Mark Twain in Day and Night

Meet Mark Twain, the great American man of humor and sardonic wit, returning to Oriental's Old Theater in Day and Night, a one-man show featuring Bill Hand as the immortal Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain.  If you only know Mark Twain through Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, those mischievous imaginative boys, who delighted us in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, you are in for some wonderful surprises. Twain's writings moved easily from pure fun to gentle satire to scathing rage to commentary on humanity. Bill Hand's arrangement of Twain's works will give you a sampling of all these styles.

Day, the first act, focuses on Twain's earlier and best known works, his more popular tales from excerpts of Tom Sawyer to his most famous short stories such as "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Valavera County" or the "Wounded Buffalo" from his book Roughing it.

Night, the second act, will visit more of his critical writings and observations, which were full of wit, irony and sometimes barely controlled rage. Among these powerful moments will be "The War Prayer", "On Being the Chief Love and Delight of God" and the true story of a slave woman who lived in New Bern during the Civil War after her children were sold and taken away from her.

Bill Hand has performed as Mark Twain for many years and said he feels a close kinship to the author's sensibilities and life. Hand remarked, "Twain was a fierce friend and a dangerous foe. His mind was always racing and for all his cynicism, he loved life, despite the tragedy of his later years. And no one was a greater lover of family than Twain."