![\"twain_5394\"](\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Twain_5394.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMaple first presented his show at Sierra Rep in 1982. He continued in the role for more than 20 years at theaters throughout the Gold Country and Central California, including a performance for the Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1998. Additionally, he provided the voice for the project\u2019s award-winning film on the life of Mark Twain. His Mark Twain connection solidified after twice meeting Hal Holbrook, whereupon they traded Twainian barbs and discussed Maple\u2019s now 18 years of research.<\/p>\n
\u201cSRT let me do this show for the first time, so now it\u2019s my turn to give back in an effort to quell rumors of Twain’s death,\u201d Maple said.<\/p>\n
On the Tuolumne County stage, Maple was a popular and critical favorite for his role as Buddy in SRT\u2019s world premiere of \u201cThe Gift Giver\u201d in 1982. He had acclaimed roles in \u201cThe Foreigner\u201d at Sierra Rep and \u201cThe Wild Guys\u201d at Stage 3 Theatre in Sonora, where he also co-starred in the 2002 premiere of Sonora playwright Rick Foste\u2019s original two-man drama, \u201cInventing the West: The Dangerous Friendship of Mark Twain and Bret Harte.\u201d That production was repeated by invitation at the Mark Twain Center in Elmira, New York, in 2003. <\/p>\n
Maple was born in Los Angeles in 1947 and moved to Sonora in 1979. He retired from the California Department of Corrections in 2000. Three years later, he and his wife, Rosa Lee, moved to Germany, where she fulfilled one of her lifelong dreams of teaching abroad. In 2006 they returned stateside and settled in Ashland, Oregon, to live near their new grandchildren. <\/p>\n
Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was born Nov. 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, and died April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut. He entered life in the year of Halley\u2019s Comet, 1835, and died in the year of its return, 1910, one day after its closest approach to Earth. He wrote his first major fictional story while living on Jackass Hill in Tuolumne County during the winter of 1864-65.<\/p>\n
William R. Gillis, one of the budding authors of Tuolumne County, recalled in his memoirs: \u201c(Twain) has a mania for story writing, imagining his name to be handed down to posterity from generation to generation.\u201d His life and writings resulted in unparalleled artistic achievements — and relentless personal suffering.<\/p>\n
Maple is now 18 years into the research and writing of a book on the mythological lineage of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He believes both are descended from the ancient Celtic myth \u201cFionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool),\u201d and that James Joyce\u2019s 1939 masterwork \u201cFinnegan\u2019s Wake\u201d is in fact a deliberate, enigmatic retelling of \u201cThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,\u201d published more than 50 years earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have found verification after verification and it all resonates,\u201d Maple said.<\/p>\n
However, Maple\u2019s show in Columbia will not venture into this area.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I\u2019m adamant about is that when I\u2019m in costume, it has to be Mark Twain\u2019s words,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
While striving to be entertaining, Maple’s goal is to introduce the depth of wisdom and substance lying just below the surface of the man and his humor.<\/p>\n