The Importance Of Laughter

By Anna Laletina

The American Culture Centre in Moscow regularly hosts a variety of interesting events. On Friday, April 2, visitors of the centre could spend an evening with Mark Twain.

Apparently, it’s not a big deal that the celebrated humorist already died.

The thing is, 30 years ago he got his official double - a professional actor Ken Richters. Back then he created a one-man show based on Twain’s biography and works. In the show, Richters talked from the part of Twain, and was accordingly in full Twain costume. Eventually, Twain became Richters’ alter ego.

The presentation in Moscow was called “Not So Innocently Abroad.” Remarkably, Ken Richters’ performance in Russia was a part of a tour retracing Twain’s original visit to Eastern Europe, as chronicled in his book “The Innocents Abroad.”

It was anything but a boring lecture or a literature class. Here is a real person who tells you about his childhood in a little town, about his feeling towards school and towards reading the Bible. In addition, he gives you vivid examples of what he did to make his dream (to march in a funeral) come true. How amusing is that!

Interacting with the audience also added charm to the performance. In an hilarious way Richters’ Twain proved that there’s no use for education, except that one learns enough to read his books. Of course, everyone in the audience knew that education is essential, but the joke was done so well that we couldn’t help smiling.

This is exactly what Twain wanted us to do: “I came today to make you laugh, and most of you did just fine.”

He came to make us laugh for a reason, and that reason is very simple: “As we get older in life, and supposedly wiser, we change. We’re not who we were. We’re not what we were when we were children.”

“You get a little bit older and you laugh a little bit less,” sadly concluded Twain.

Some might call him Captain Obvious for this statement, but in reality these are precisely obvious things that people tend to forget and neglect the most. Like, as you get older, busier and more important, you also get more obligations, and something’s got to give. And one of the easiest things to give up is your sense of humor.

Yes, Twain’s message was very obvious: hold onto your childhood as long as you can, thus you will hold onto the laughter. Luckily for us, Twain’s works can help us stay children for a long time.