McAvoy Layne as Mark Twain.
After more than 4,000 performances around the world, Mark Twain impressionist McAvoy Layne is about to hang up the white suit on the same stage where it all began.
“It’s going to be so emotional for me,” Layne said. “I’ll be standing in the very spot where it started 35 years ago.”
Layne’s final evening as Mark Twain takes place at 7 p.m. Sept. 30 at Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City. The special evening of the “Great Ghost” will be hosted by the Comstock Foundation. He has begun preparing his final words from Twain’s “Homeward Bound” speech to acknowledge Carol Piper Marshall, great-granddaughter of John Piper who built the historic facility at 12 B St.
“It is with profound gratitude to Carol Piper Marshall that I acknowledge my time has come to sail my little sloop upon dry land and haul down my colors,” Layne began reciting. “A very smart lady once told me it is better to retire two years too early than two minutes too late.”
Layne began playing humorist Twain in 1988 on Piper’s stage and said Marshall called him in those early days about visiting 10 schools a week to give his performances.
“She said, ‘How would you like to do two shows a day, six days a week for four months at Piper’s?’ So, 200 shows,” Layne said. “(It was the) luckiest break because I got to try out new material with live audiences to see what passages recite and what I should leave alone. So by the end of that summer of ’88, I wasn’t ready for primetime, but I was ready to go on the road.”
He traveled to Russia, across Europe and to the “Sandwich Islands.” He’s had the opportunity to climb inside Sputnik, visit with vaudeville performer and actor Will Rogers and meet with other Chautaquans regionally.
Layne, who says more community members open to him when he’s in character, happily knows where he’s had the most impact in telling Sam’s story.
“I’m most effective in the classroom,” he said. “There was a venue called the ‘Trial of Mark Twain’ where (Advanced Placement) English kids would try me for racist literature and get their evidence out of Mark Twain. Real courtroom, real judge, mock trial.”
Layne smiled describing a bus ride with a group of high school students to the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix and described their behavior before and after entering the building.
“I’ll never forget this — and these kids are 17 years old on the bus on the way there — and they’re telling me, ‘Twain, you’re going down!’ But when we walk in that beautiful courtroom, everything changes — their demeanor, their delivery, they turn into adults before your eyes,” he said. “And once they get past that word that sears the eyeball and makes you want to put the work aside and realize that ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is a strong indictment against prejudice, racism and narrowmindedness, it’s heartwarming to see.
“So I would say that trial in that building was probably the most gratifying, single day of my life as Mark Twain.”
To help “keep the torch burning,” as his predecessor Hal Halbrook encouraged him to do on a signed letterhead, Layne has been grooming for the past couple of years on preparing his mentee, Rob Alvey in South Florida to take up Twain’s cigar and storytelling. Layne said he has worked with him to perfect his performances, making sure he develops his character just right, adhere to his material and stay true as a humorist, not as a comedian. And to keep it going, he signed his own letterhead with the same advice, “Keep the torch burning, McAvoy” for Alvey.
“I made myself a promise when I first started to one, have fun, and two, to make (Twain) proud,” Layne said, “and I would not play loosely with his material. And I’ve stuck to that, and it has been fun.”
Layne said as he prepares for his final bow at Piper’s, he looks to others who have played similar characters on his depiction of Twain in the past 35 years.
“I’ve had other Chautauquans tell me I should be proud in the way I represent him and they’re my favorite judges, and I really admire the work they do,” Layne said. “And I try to encourage people to consider Chautauqua as a hobby, to study somebody you admire and to bring that person to life because it gives you another life. I know more about Mark Twain’s life than I can remember about mine, so I really do have a second life. And one life is not enough!”