Two Acts, One man: A great night out
Chris Wallace, an American born Australian resident has worn a number of creative hats in both Australia and the USA. From writing and producing on-air promotion in NYC, to composing original songs for children’s television shows in Washington D.C., to appearing on Australian TV shows like Stingers and Blue Heelers.
Chris Wallace, an American born Australian resident has worn a number of creative hats in both Australia and the USA. From writing and producing on-air promotion in NYC, to composing original songs for children’s television shows in Washington D.C., to appearing on Australian TV shows like Stingers and Blue Heelers.
Wallace’s list is of achievements in both countries is endless. (Seriously! I’ve read the bio). Similarly, his experience, knowledge and ability to communicate is awe-inspiring. A 25 minute interview was just the tip of the ice-burg, and I was left wanting to know more.
“One of my guardian angels – a psychic in Los Angeles – said to me as I was leaving LA ‘I want you to be Mark Twain in Australia’. I know this is bizarre, but it’s true!,” he quips.
“Everyone who knows me knows that I have a Mark Twain ‘thing’, although as a child I really only knew of the Tom Sawyer story (and I’m not even sure if I read it when I was a kid!). But one day, while visiting his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, I developed an insatiable curiosity about him. It was almost like a little flake of him had landed on me and I needed to know more.”
Wallace describes with amazing detail and alacrity his discovery of the father of American literature, his fascination with Twain’s writing and his eventual creation of a one man show – The Mark Twain You Don’t Know.
Playing at NIDA’s Playhouse Theatre from March 2-13, Wallace’s show includes performances of Twain’s lesser known writings and a one act musical of Huckleberry Finn.
“I did a musical version of Huckleberry Finn years ago, and I was thinking that this was going to satisfy what this psychic was saying about being Mark Twain in Australia… but nobody seemed to be interested in the musical, so I let it go,” he laughs.
“I got busy – and I edited some of Twain’s lesser known material and in 2004, I performed (an early version of the show) in Ballarat. I had done a one man show before: telling stories and singing. But I had this feeling in my gut that this was the best idea I had ever had. So that was the genesis of it. It had been marinating for some time.”
The one act, one man play had been polished, reshaped, edited and reworked many times. But there was something missing.
“Theatres like to have an interval, so they can sell stuff”, joked Wallace, “and so the show eventually evolved to involve the Hucklebery Finn musical which was sitting around gathering dust!”
Wallace says that the dialogue in the Act II musical, Hucklebery Finn, uses Mark Twain’s words direct from the text. However, when the characters are singing, they use Wallace’s words. Similarly, the stories from Act I are edited from their original lengths, but never paraphrased.
“I am always performing his words,” Wallace says.
“The pieces that I do in the first act were never meant to be performed. And they have never been performed. They are literature, not performance pieces. I have chosen the sections that are the most interesting, shocking or have the most relevance and made them into performance pieces.”
The first piece is called Letters From The Earth – Mark Twain’s version of the creation of the universe. The text is essentially Satan’s satirical letters about the ‘human experiment’ which Mark Twain requested be published 500 years after his death because we (as a society) weren’t ready for the content found within the manuscript.
The second piece, entitled 1601, was never meant to be published.
The third piece, The War Prayer, Twain stipulated could only be published upon his death.
“The War Prayer is a stunning piece of writing about the other side of war. In other words, our patriotism is their humiliation and degredation. It’s a really strong piece.”, says Wallace.
Actor, creator, composer, producer – Chris Wallace brings to life an “edgy, irreverent, hilarious Mark Twain who speaks with a voice that has lost none of its power”.
Details and bookings: www.ticketek.com.au.
