A “Much Talked-Of Event”

By Colleen Gundlach
“Any strange and much-talked-of event is always followed by imitation, the world being so well supplied with excitable people who only need a little stirring up to make them lose what is left of their heads and do mad things which they would not have thought of ordinarily.” So said Mark Twain in “The United States of Lyncherdom.” A much-talked-of event worthy of imitation will be presented later this month at Infinity Hall when well-known Norfolk resident West Lowe takes the stage as the glib-tongued Samuel Clemens, more commonly known as Mark Twain.
For some thirty plus years, Lowe has entertained and enthralled audiences from Norfolk to the St. Lawrence to Montana and back again with his insightful and often side-splitting rendition of the renowned author and societal critic.
Lowe became interested in Twain’s work as a teenager, having lived a Huck Finn type of life himself at Lake Waramaug in New Preston, where his parents owned and operated the Boulders Inn. “From Memorial Day through Labor Day my parents were all-consumed running the inn,” he says. “I had the freedom to run around and play like Huck Finn.” Later, while attending St. Lawrence University, he decided to do a semester in independent study of Mark Twain. In an effort to avoid having to write a paper on the subject, Lowe borrowed a white suit from the university’s theater department and took his interest in Twain to the stage.

West Lowe will perform as Mark Twain at Infinity Hall this Month.

After college, Lowe worked at the ski slopes in Vail, Colorado, but was “unhappy because I wasn’t creating things.” So he studied fine woodworking in Missoula, Montana and eventually came back to Connecticut to work with a Cornwall furniture maker before opening his own shop on Norfolk’s North Street. During that time he met and married Marie Isabelle and settled in Norfolk.
Since moving to town, Lowe’s cabinet-making talent has morphed into property management, including building, maintaining and restoring properties. He has also become very involved in town business, having served as chairman of the Planning & Zoning Commission for many years and continuing to serve as a member to this date. “I find it very fortuitous that I am living in a town where Mark Twain had stayed and where his daughter had lived,” he says. Twain’s daughter, Clara, had summered in Norfolk during the early 1900’s, and had her American debut as a contralto singer in a singing recital in the Eldridge Gymnasium, which is now Norfolk’s Town Hall. It is reported that Clara used the proceeds from this concert to purchase a stained glass window for Norfolk’s Church of the Transfiguration on Mills Way in honor of her mother, Olivia Langdon Clemens.
“Twain was the first true American superhero,” says Lowe. “He was often controversial but was super-popular in Europe and America. He lived in a pre-television time when minstrel shows and other traveling entertainment and oratory were huge. He traveled to raise awareness of his books.” Twain’s travels, though, proved to be much more than a book tour, as he spread his wit and wisdom throughout the country. In this century, Lowe is keeping the Twain tradition alive through his theatrical impersonation of the eccentric author and lecturer.
When the acclaimed Twain actor Hal Holbrook appeared at the Warner Theater in Torrington recently, Lowe attended a show. “Holbrook’s presentation was more philosophical and critical. Mine is certainly as critical, but a lot more humorous. Twain had a remarkable sense of timing and wit” which Lowe brings out in his interpretation.
Of his appearance at Infinity Hall on January 10 at 8 p.m., Lowe says, “If you haven’t heard the tale of “His Grandfather’s Old Ram,” treat yourself to a true example of Twain humor at its best. Come enjoy an evening’s introduction to the man who said, ‘Let us endeavor to live our lives in such a way, so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.’ ”

Photo by Christopher Little