I didn't plan the week this way, but on Tuesday, I happened across a copy of Roughing It in my video store's DVD shelf, and gave it a try. It got off on the wrong foot with me before the opening credits were over - "Based on the novel by Mark Twain," it read. Err, um, shouldn't that be a memoir? It then cross cuts between a speech that Twain makes to Susy's graduating class (a speech that never actually happened), and his adventures as a young assistant to the secretary of Nevada. In the weaker of the two threads, James Garner gives his best imitation of Hal Holbrook, but I never really warmed up to him as Twain. Much better is the portrayal of the young Clemens by Robin Dunne, even though the actor doesn't resemble the historic young Clemens and doesn't much try. Also, the portrayal of Clemens as a completely naive youth seems odd, considering that the young man who went to Nevada had spent years as a very accomplished riverboat pilot. As the story progresses, they do photograph some very pretty scenery while the stage coach is heading west, and they do get down to the business of telling some of the stories that I remember from the book - most memorably the story of wandering around in a blizzard, and noticing that the tracks in the snow keep getting more voluminous, until they realize that they are going in circles. Also, the episode of the lucrative mining claim that is missed by one hour was done as I remembered it. I checked my copy of Roughing it and found a number of the other tales from the adaptation, so I can report that they tried their best to tell the book's! story up to the point of Sam's hiring as a reporter. Unfortunately, they zipped right past Salt Lake City, so any of Twain's sardonic views of the Mormon religion were glossed over, but remember that this was a Hallmark production. Meanwhile, back at Vassar, Susy is afraid that her dad will embarrass her by telling his old anecdotes. In spite of the fact that he really does tell his old anecdotes, the reaction shots tell us that she is enthralled after the first 2 minutes, perhaps because he threw in some wisdom about finding your own path in life. At the end, there is a maudlin scene where the two have a protracted hug. That threw it off the Richter scale for Twain spinning in his grave, and notched the whole effort down to a C- in my gradebook. Five days later, thanks to an alert by Kevin Bochynski in this list, I was at Hofstra University in Long Island for a performance of "Heaven Sent: the afterlife of Mark Twain." Synchronistically enough, Hofstra is only about 3 miles from my house on Long Island. This was in the Spiegel Playhouse, an intimate theater that seats about 150 souls. Nearly every seat was filled. The play begins in a dressing room where an actor is facing the performance of a one man show of Mark Twain. It seems that the usual actor, a Mr. Brookholt (get it?) had taken ill, and the substitute actor had been given only 4 days to learn to internalize Twain. Unfortunately, he hadn't really got it. Thunder rumbles, and a door flies open. There, accompanied by rolls of smoke, is the ghost of Mark Twain himself. Twain begins to educate the actor just as the theater manager pops his head in to warn that show time was in 45 minutes. Just as the actor is being successfully indoctrinated by the expansive, dramatic and funny ghost, another voice is heard from above, but not before the entire audience was treated to the sounds of a loud cell phone. Soon, another ghost drifts in and it is the ghost of Sam Clemens, who has come back to Earth to demythologize the legend that he has created. Sam is serious, moralizing, and dedicated to the notion that great prose belongs on the page, not on the speaker's platform. With his slick-back dark hair and stocky build, Sam resembles Martin Sheen more than Twain, but this serves its purpose in making him look like the very opposite of his creation. We then learn that the time period is circa 1985, because Twain and Sam have been sent down from Heaven, hitching a ride of Halley's comet. They have to work out this split personality thing befor! e anybody gets through the Pearly Gates. The real fun begins as the two ghosts compete for the actor's sympathies and whack his head to fill him with each ghost's version of the facts. As the miutes before showtime melt away, he is bewildered by the range of choices - play the standard old Twain, the moralistic and uptight Sam, or just go with the script. As the two spout long sections of passages from the books, they hold spirited arguments (unintentional pun - sorry) about which one wrote it. All of this demonstrates that the playwright did years of homework on his subject - I'd only quibble with one near the end where Mark is describing "Joan of Arc" as his greatest work. I'd have to call that one for Sam. In spite of the author's devotion to Twainian accuracy, there is an audience of non-scholars to entertain here, and he spices the play with the right amount of slapstick, profanity, fart jokes, and Marx Brothers shtick to keep the audience on-board and laughing. As the One Man show starts, the actor is completely at a loss, and the two ghosts prop up his unconscious form in a rocking chair and recite the lines for him to an audience of 6 people (including the actor's mother). In the end, Sam makes a deal with the Other Side to channel Livy from Heaven by way of the actor's mother. Livy manages to bring the two sides together by professing to love both men. People in the audience had a good time and, if they didn't know much about Twain before, probably learned some things. It was obvious that the cast had a blast putting this on. At the end, the author, Drew Keil, came out to take a well-deserved bow. He mentioned that this project had been in the works for a long time (I suspect since the 1980's). I'm not certain if the play will see an afterlife when it ends its run at Hofstra next week, but it certainly deserves one in my estimation. This earns a solid A from me. Terry Ballard Quinnipiac University