Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Is He Dead?, Otterbein University Department Of Theatre And Dance

2015-2016 Season

This play was written by Mark Twain in 1898 and first published in print in 2003. The play focuses on a fictional version of the great French painter, Jean-François Millet, as an impoverished artist in Barbizon, France who, with the help of his colleagues, stages his death in order to increase the value of his paintings, and afterwards dresses as a woman to keep his secret safe. Combining elements of burlesque, farce, and social satire, the comedy relies on such devices as cross-dressing, mistaken identities, and romantic deceptions to tell its story, which raises …