TwainFest brings 19th Century literary giants to life in Old Town

Halley’s Comet arrived the year Mark Twain was born, and the year he died. Other than that, the two have little in common.

Twain comes around a lot more often than every 75 years.

He’s never left, really, even though it’s been more than a century since he passed away. Arguably America’s best-known author of grown-up stories, he’s still read in schools, still found on bookstore shelves, still drawing laughs as he did Saturday in Old Town, where the annual TwainFest was held.

“I like him because he says things I can’t, audacious things,” said Tim West, who portrayed the white-suited, mustachioed writer in a series of readings during the event. “I think that’s why everyone likes him.”

TwainFest started in 2010, created by the group Write Out Loud as a way to mark the centennial of the author’s death. Organizers thought it might be a one-time thing.

Now it’s a yearly five-hour festival celebrating not just the noted humorist but other literary giants of the 1800s through readings, games, food, music, and even giant puppets.

The lumbering likenesses of Twain, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and Paul Laurence Dunbar drew countless smiles and cellphone photos from people gathered around the state park’s central plaza.

That’s where a lot of the activities were held. People penned hand-written sentences to long rolls of paper making up the “Never-Ending Story,” which was actually three stories: one a romance, one a mystery, one a Gothic horror. They played “Wheel of Fiction.”

They listened to snake-oil pitches from costumed purveyors peddling vials purportedly packed with the liquid essence of famous writers.

They launched toy frogs via catapult in the direction of a plastic bucket, a nod to one of Twain’s most famous stories, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

“I love it all,” said Mike Murray, an Orange County resident who stumbled across TwainFest four years ago during a visit to Old Town and has returned every summer since. “The costumes, the games, the old-timey feel of things.”

How old-timey? He was wearing a T-shirt with lettering on the front that read “Trust me. I’m a blacksmith.” Which, he said, he really is. “We’re trying to bring back the lost arts,” he said.

He had just finished a treasure hunt around the park, collecting clues and answering literary questions. (Sample: What was Long John Silver wearing?) When he’d found all the answers, he turned in his treasure map and picked out a prize from a box of toys and trinkets.

Other activities yielded tickets that could be redeemed for a free book at the Book Emporium.

In a room off the Seeley Stables, Kylie Acuña entertained audiences throughout the day as Susy Clemens, Twain’s oldest daughter and one of his most important muses.

Acuña and Ralph Johnson, as Twain, read back and forth from “The Extraordinary Mark Twain,” a children’s book based on a biography Clemens wrote about her father when she was 13. (Twain later incorporated parts of it into his own autobiography.)

The performance included funny observations about Twain’s “fine qualities and his not-so-fine qualities,” his appearance, and how he was much more than just a humorist. It bemoaned the popularity that made it hard for Twain to go out in public without being recognized.

“Far too much of Papa’s time was used up being famous,” Acuña-as-Susy said.

Out in the crowd, people waved paper TwainFest fans to cool themselves in the gathering heat of a summer day. And a gentle breeze blew back and forth through time.

john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com