Mark Twain

Bruce M. Wondersek, a reclusive writer who spent most of the days of his adult life at the public library, died of throat cancer Tuesday at the Joseph Ritchie Hospice in Baltimore. He was 62. Raised in eastern Baltimore County, Mr. Wondersek was a 1962 graduate of Parkville High School and received his bachelor's degree in English from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1968. He worked at Bethlehem Steel for nine years in the 1970s, but spent most of his time reading and writing at the North Point Library in Dundalk, said a brother, Karl W. Wondersek Jr. of Staunton, Va. "He told me last week that he had read every book in the library that was worth reading," his brother said.

Judging from their reaction, it seems that Tom Sawyer still enchants new generations of young fans. At least a fifth of the audience at Sunday's performance of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Chesapeake Arts Center's Studio Theatre were children. They frowned with concern as Tom witnessed a murder in the graveyard, snickered when his tattletale half-brother, Sid, got a reprimand from Aunt Polly and laughed openly when at his own funeral Tom pestered Sid by repeatedly touching his ankle from under a sofa.

Bowie Community Theatre shows impeccable timing with its run of Neil Simon's Rumors, which coincides with his being awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center on Sunday before a star-studded lineup, including Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Christina Applegate and Robert Redford. Simon wrote Rumors in 1988, his 23rd play and first attempt at farce, a form that depends on complications that spring from an initial true situation. Because of the Mark Twain award, Bowie Community Theatre will honor Simon in its opening show and in the spring with Proposals.

Mark Twain: A Life By Ron Powers Free Press / 620 pages / $16 Powers argues compellingly that Mark Twain was "the representative figure of his times" embodying America during the tumultuous late 19th and early 20th centuries, from the divided self of the Civil War, through the unstable prosperity of the Gilded Age, to the verge of World War I. While many Twain biographies have been written before, none succeeds like Powers' in presenting the totality of...

PICK UP AN EXPERT HITCH- hiker when you visit Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi. Like the military park in Gettysburg, Pa., Vicksburg has licensed tour guides who can ride in your car and provide personalized tours of the Civil War battlefields. Complexities of strategy and position, details of human drama and information customized to your interests are available through the service, offered only at these two parks. Guides must pass written and oral tests on the military actions before being certified to lead visitors in the one-on-one programs.

PBS tonight offers three hours of programs celebrating standout TV comedians ranging from Milton Berle to Steve Martin. The lineup of comics and writers interviewed and shown in performance is dazzling: Larry David, Carl Reiner, Lily Tomlin and Sid Caesar. Yet, for all the comedic talent onscreen, it is an evening surprisingly devoid of laughs. Worse yet, by the standards of PBS, viewers are not likely to come away from the programs much enlightened about the role of comedy in American life.

Mark Twain: A Life Ron Powers Free Press / 691 pages The trouble with theories, says Tom in Tom Sawyer Abroad, is that "there's always a hole in them somewheres, sure, if you look close enough." You would think the legions of critics and biographers who have spent the last 100 years theorizing about Mark Twain's genius might take a hint from Tom and show some restraint. But, no, they keep coming forward year after year, confidently speculating - often with little evidence to back them up - that Twain was secretly gay or a confirmed racist or a sour misogynist or simply a cynical, self-destructive monomaniac.

A musical performed by a combination of hearing and deaf actors. The prospect sounds unwieldy, at the very least. But it's difficult to imagine a revival of Roger Miller and William Hauptman's Big River that flows more gracefully or resonates more meaningfully than the one co-produced by Deaf West Theatre at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Not only does director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun's staging of this 1985 Huckleberry Finn musical succeed on multiple levels - visually, aurally, literally, metaphorically - but it is one of those rare and wonderful examples of a show that does what it is about.

When Michael McElroy auditioned for the role of Jim in Deaf West Theatre's production of Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he thought he'd be using American Sign Language only during the songs. He soon realized he would be signing -- as well as reciting -- his many lines. At that point, McElroy, who had never before used sign language, began to panic. For the next week, he entered "sign boot camp," spending at least three hours a day with an interpreter to learn the signs for every word in the script.