Deep Dish Theater Company - Mark Twain’s Is He Dead?

19th century drag never looked so ladylike.

Featuring a diverse cast, including a cross-dresser, Chapel Hill-based Deep Dish Theater Company’s satire Is He Dead? combines Mark Twain’s tongue-in-cheek wit with playwright David Ives’ skillful adaption for the stage.

Written in 1898 by Twain but published posthumously in 2003, Is He Dead? features a French backdrop through an American perspective. Poor French painter Jean-Francois Millet is unable to sell any of his artwork, and so to boost sales, he and his friends devise a daring scheme to sell his pictures: fake Millet’s death. To keep up this charade, Millet disguises himself as his widowed sister Daisy, which results in unexpected marriage proposals and a crash course in female etiquette.

Steven Roten’s strong performance as Millet, in addition to the whimsical roles of Millet’s trio of friends, played by by C. Delton Streeter, Jon Karnofsky and Kit FitzSimons, get viewers laughing easily.

From comical stares and glares to basic toilet humor, the actors take advantage of every element in their arsenal to elicit laughs. Clad in petticoats, Millet parades the stage as a dainty Victorian beauty for half the show. Despite Millet’s overexaggerated persona as a woman, two old ladies, played by Sharleen Thomas and Joyce Weiser, still seem hopelessly oblivious to the situation. And Streeter’s Chicago has nearly an endless supply of clever one-liners.

Doug Wood, lighting designer of Is He Dead?, using different light arrangements to set off certain characters’ insights within the context of the production. Throughout the play, the overexaggerated bright lights spotlight a character for a few knowing quotes or for a quick laugh—such as a “lady’s” desperate plea for a smoke.

Clocking in at about two hours, Deep Dish’s Is He Dead? is a typical Mark Twain twist, drawing out the humorous elements even in death.

Is He Dead? plays at University Mall in Chapel Hill through Nov. 13. Tickets are $19, $12 for students and can be purchased at deepdishtheater.org.