It was the fall and winter of '76 that Bret Harte came to Hartford and
collaborated with Mark Twain on the play “Ah Sin,” a comedy-drama, or
melodrama, written for Charles T. Parsloe, the great impersonator
of Chinese character. Harte had written a successful play which
unfortunately he had sold outright for no great sum, and was eager
for another venture. Harte had the dramatic sense and constructive
invention. He also had humor, but he felt the need of the sort of humor
that Mark Twain could furnish. Furthermore, he believed that a play
backed by both their reputations must start with great advantages.
Clemens also realized these things, and the arrangement was made.
Speaking of their method of working, Clemens once said:
“Well, Bret came down to Hartford and we talked it over, and then Bret
wrote it while I played billiards, but of course I had to go over it
to get the dialect right. Bret never did know anything about dialect.”
Which is hardly a fair statement of the case. They both worked on the
play, and worked hard.
During the period of its construction Harte had an order for a story
which he said he must finish at once, as he needed the money. It must
be delivered by the following night, and he insisted that he must be
getting at it without a moment's delay. Still he seemed in no haste to
begin. The evening passed; bedtime came. Then he asked that an open fire
might be made in his room and a bottle of whisky sent up, in case he
needed something to keep him awake. George attended to these matters,
and nothing more was heard of Harte until very early next morning, when
he rang for George and asked for a fresh fire and an additional supply
of whisky. At breakfast-time he appeared, fresh, rosy, and elate, with
the announcement that his story was complete.
That forenoon the Saturday Morning Club met at the Clemens home. It
was a young women's club, of which Mark Twain was a sort of honorary
member--a club for the purpose of intellectual advancement, somewhat on
the order of the Monday Evening Club of men, except that the papers read
before it were not prepared by members, but by men and women prominent
in some field of intellectual progress. Bret Harte had agreed to read
to them on this particular occasion, and he gaily appeared and gave them
the story just finished, “Thankful Blossom,” a tale which Mark Twain
always regarded as one of Harte's very best.
The new play, “Ah Sin,” by Mark Twain and Bret Harte, was put on at
Washington, at the National Theater, on the evening of May 7, 1877. It
had been widely exploited in the newspapers, and the fame of the authors
insured a crowded opening. Clemens was unable to go over on account of
a sudden attack of bronchitis. Parsloe was nervous accordingly, and the
presence of Harte does not seem to have added to his happiness.
“I am not very well myself,” he wrote to Clemens. “The excitement of the
first night is bad enough, but to have the annoyance with Harte that I
have is too much for a new beginner.”
Nevertheless, the play seems to have gone well, with Parsloe as Ah
Sin--a Chinese laundryman who was also a great number of other diverting
things--with a fair support and a happy-go-lucky presentation of
frontier life, which included a supposed murder, a false accusation, and
a general clearing-up of mystery by the pleasant and wily and useful
and entertaining Ah Sin. It was not a great play. It was neither very
coherent nor convincing, but it had a lot of good fun in it, with
character parts which, if not faithful to life, were faithful enough to
the public conception of it to be amusing and exciting. At the end
of each act not only Parsloe, but also the principal members of the
company, were called before the curtain for special acknowledgments.
When it was over there was a general call for Ah Sin, who came before
the curtain and read a telegram.
CHARLES T. PARSLOE,--I am on the sick-list, and therefore cannot come to
Washington; but I have prepared two speeches--one to deliver in event of
failure of the play, and the other if successful. Please tell me which I
shall send. May be better to put it to vote.