Who would've thought that the seemingly affable, mustachioed elderly man who many people probably and sadly mistaken for Colonel Sanders, could be such an angry old fart?

"The Man Who Lost the River," which portrays a cynical, angry Mark Twain during the last year of his life, will play at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 and Friday, Nov. 17, and again at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17, and Saturday, Nov. 18, in O'Neil Auditorium at John A. Logan College.

Toward the end of his life, Twain became disillusioned with many institutions, including government and religion, and was a proponent of animal rights, adamantly opposing vivisection (dissecting a living creature) in the interest of science.

From 1901, until the time of his death, he was the vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, which protested the annexation of the Philippines by the United States.

The play follows a 75-year-old Twain awaiting the arrival of Halley's comet and his own expiration in 1910. He hoped to die the same year the comet returned because it also came to Earth the year he was born.

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835 � and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't. The Almighty has said, no doubt, 'Here are these unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.' Oh! I am looking forward to that," Twain said in 1909.

While waiting for the two events to intertwine, Twain is visited by a young man who represents his publisher and is trying to convince him to write another novel on the level of Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer.

While the writer is initially opposed to the idea, saying that because he can no longer see the Mississippi River, he doesn't have the inspiration to write. But after several visits from a mysterious young boy, Twain reaches an epiphany and begins to write a new story.

However, shortly after establishing this new tale, Halley's Comet passes and two old friends appear and offer him the chance to take one more journey down the Mississippi River.

The production is directed by Stan Hale, associate professor of English and Humanities.

- Codell Rodriguez

'The Man Who Lost the River'

10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 16; 10 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17; 7:30 p.m. Saturday; O'Neill Auditorium, John A. Logan College, Carterville; tickets are $6 for the general public and $5 for students; matinees are $1 for general public and free for students; call the Student Activities Office at John A. Logan College at (618) 985-3741 or be purchased at the door.