Ellijay audiences will have two chances to learn more about Mark Twain, as well as Samuel Clemens, the man behind the pseudonym.
Kurt Sutton, a Georgia performer who’s starred in various one-man shows about Mark Twain, will portray the celebrated author and humorist in a two-night stand at the George Link Jr. Gilmer Arts Playhouse. He will present “Conversations With Mark Twain” Friday, April 5, and Saturday, April 6, both at 7 p.m.
“I’m lucky that Mark Twain wrote on every topic imaginable,” said Sutton, who’s paid tribute to Twain onstage for almost 20 years.
In that time, he’s performed throughout the country in theaters big and small, as well as a host of other venues including a riverboat, the vessel which Twain/Clemens once piloted and wrote about.
“In order to do this, you have to travel or be a local every-once-in-a-while kind of show,” he said.
Sutton first became enamored with Twain’s books like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Life on the Mississippi” as a high school student. His interest grew as a history major at the University of Georgia.
“We used to read his work in high school, but they don’t do that anymore, from what I understand. I taught school for a while and always put Mark Twain in the class when I could,” Sutton said.
How Samuel Clemens, who first used his future pen name reporting for a Virginia newspaper, applied his literary talents to the Twain persona was particularly intriguing, noted Sutton.
“Samuel Clemens was a genius and a Renaissance man. He did everything,” Sutton added. “He was a riverboat pilot, a printer, an inventor, a miner and all these things. He was also a musician, but he never played music onstage as Mark Twain. He did lectures and speeches, but, back in those times, playing music was pretty much against the values of the people who were coming to hear him speak. It was minstrel stuff, and he wasn’t that.”
Playing both Clemens and Twain in “Conversations” allows Sutton to incorporate some old-timey folk singing and strumming into the show. This seemed only natural for Sutton, who used to play in a touring band that supported country music stars like Waylon Jennings and Barbara Mandrell. For a spell, he also managed the Great Southeast Music Hall, a bygone Atlanta nightspot which, in the ‘70s, was played by such notable recording artists as Jimmy Buffett, B.B. King and Doc Watson.
“In this show, you have humor, storytelling, music, a singalong and a part where I talk (directly) to the audience and answer questions. I play banjo and guitar, sometimes harmonica. It depends on what songs I pull out,” Sutton said. “Every one of the songs I do are folk songs that people should know, and I do one original song that I wrote about being a pilot on a steamboat. People don’t know it’s an original song unless I tell ‘em, because I wrote it in that (old-timey) style.”
Sutton had seen actor Hal Holbrook perform as Mark Twain before eventually setting out to do something like that himself. It took a while, but he kept the project high on his want-to-do list.
“At first, I played a lot of churches and schools earning my stripes and getting comfortable with it. Then I started playing theaters and other venues. Now I’m able to book myself in places,” Sutton said. “I’ve never had a problem being onstage or in front of people. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life in front of people as a teacher or a musician.”
It helps not having to wear a wig or fake mustache onstage, confirmed Sutton.
“I’m glad I don’t have to do that,” he said. “When people meet me now, they usually say one of two things: Mark Twain or Albert Einstein because of my mustache and hair, which is white and kind of unruly.”
Just as Clemens’ life story would be interesting even if he’d never become Mark Twain, Sutton, himself, has an interesting story. He speaks with a strong Southern accent, so you’d never know he and his family immigrated to the U.S. from Germany, where Sutton was born during World War II.
They first lived in Chicago, but eventually settled in Ball Ground in the early ‘50s. Sutton later attended Reinhardt University, UGA and Western Carolina University, then taught and coached at Sprayberry High School in Marietta. He currently lives in Buford.
It looked like the pandemic would forever put the brakes on the momentum that Sutton had built playing Twain, but he was relieved to finally get back to performing in the role last year.
“I don’t know how some of my musician friends who are professionals made it (during the pandemic) since playing music is their living. It shut me down for a while, too,” he said.
The upcoming two-night engagement, his first here, will allow Sutton to cross Gilmer off a stretch of four north Georgia counties including Pickens, Cherokee and Fannin, where he’s previously performed.
“I’ve played the Tater Patch Theater in Jasper, the theater in Blue Ridge and the Canton Theatre, but I haven’t been to Ellijay,” he said.