Twain and Travel

Mark Twain visited 5 continents, crossed the Atlantic Ocean 29 times and toured the world “talking and reading from his own rich humor”!

“Travel writing not only encouraged Mark Twain to comment on striking aspects of the world – no small gift for an easily bored moralist – but it also permitted him to use his special literary gifts, which displayed themselves best in the short bursts of pointed observations, anecdotes, episodes, and tales”. These observations, anecdotes, episodes, and tales are exacly what Wronski has captured and compiled into a riviting one-man play.

“Following the popular success of The Innocents Abroad, Twain revisited the formula — travel, humor and exotic information — in his second book, Roughing It (1872). It begins with a young Twain riding a stagecoach into the American West in 1861, and ends six years later after he’s tried to get rich as a silver miner and then discovered his true vocation as an editor and reporter on a Nevada newspaper. This is a book of digressions, anecdotes and marvelous descriptions. “His style is singularly lucid, unambiguous and strong,” a leading critic wrote. “Its simplicity is good art.”

“Twain wrote A Tramp Abroad (1880) as a sequel to his best-selling The Innocents Abroad. The punning title refers to an intended walking tour of Europe that Twain took with a friend, even though, ironically, they traveled mostly by train, steamboat and carriage. Though he spent 14 months on the European continent collecting material, Twain had a difficult time writing this book. He confided to a friend midway through that he’d just realized he hated travel, hotels, European food, Old Masters and opera. While critics have considered this the weakest of his travel books, it was a popular success, selling nearly as well as Innocents Abroadand helping to establish Twain as an international celebrity.”

“Following the Equator (1897) is Twain’s account of a round-the-world lecture tour he took of British Empire countries — Pacific islands, Australia, India and South Africa — in 1895 at age 60. The famous author had gone bankrupt the year before after investing in a typesetting machine, and the lecture tour and ensuing book’s success enabled him to pay off his debts. It’s a book, Twain confided to a friend, ‘whose outside aspect is to be cheerful, but whose secret substance is all made of bitterness and rebellion.’ Twain’s usual self-deprecating humor stands alongside heartfelt editorials against the cruelty of imperialism.”

The show follows Twain’s own travels to France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, India, South Africa, Germany, and finally England. Wronski not only illustrates the journeys of Mark Twain but also offers Twain’s reflections.