King Arthur hits the modern world in a 'Connecticut Yankee' twist

April 08, 2016 12:00 am • Last Updated: April 09, 2016 12:45 pm

By Kristina Dorsey
Features Editor

Cast members of “King Arthur in Contemporary Connecticut” rehearse for their upcoming shows in Mystic. (Photo submitted)

King Arthur hits the modern world in a 'Connecticut Yankee' twist staged at Mark Twain House and in Mystic

Is this called synergy? A play loosely inspired by Mark Twain’s classic “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” is going to be staged ... at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, where the legendary author wrote that novel in the late 1800s.

Don’t fret, southeastern Connecticut theater fans: the production, presented by Mystic-based Emerson Theater Collaborative, will be staged in Mystic as well.

In Twain’s 1889 tale, Connecticut resident Hank Morgan, superintendent of the Colt Firearms Factory in Hartford, ends up back in King Arthur’s time.

Playwright James C. Ferguson says his “King Arthur in Contemporary Connecticut” is “essentially the inverse. King Arthur ends up in Connecticut, except instead of landing in the past, he goes into the future. It’s really a flip on the original story concept.”

On the eve of a big battle, King Arthur is pulled by Merlin’s magic into the current day, notes Theresa Broach, who is directing “King Arthur in Contemporary Connecticut.” Even while here, though, he is haunted by Lancelot’s ghost.

This version boasts plenty of fish-out-of-water elements. What’s particularly entertaining, Ferguson says, are the things that are entirely new to King Arthur (like electricity) or whose contemporary versions bewilder him (like beer and travel time). He almost gets run over by a car, which he calls a dragon. The playwright enjoyed taking a heroic, strong character who has been around for hundreds of years and putting him in ordinary, mundane situations.

As Jacques Lamarre, director of communication and special programs at the Mark Twain House, succinctly puts it, “Twain sent Hank from the Industrial Age back to the Dark Ages, basically, and James Ferguson is sending the Dark Ages into the Digital Age.”

And he points out something that a lot of people don’t realize: “A Connecticut Yankee” was the first time travel story.

When ETC producer Camilla Ross contacted Lamarre about the possibility of performing “King Arthur in Contemporary Connecticut” in the Mark Twain House, he says, “I thought it was a natural for us. Anything that gets people thinking about Twain and his work is why we’re here. ... We’re really excited to do this twist where Twain wrote (the original).”

Indeed, “A Connecticut Yankee” was one of the last things that Twain published while living in the Hartford house; it was published in 1889, and he moved out in 1891.

Lamarre notes that other people have updated the Twain classic, including in the form of the 1995 movie “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court” and the 2001 Martin Lawrence film “Black Knight.”

“I think what’s great about James’ version is it’s the first one I know of that sends (King Arthur) forward in time,” he says.

When he was working in the movie industry, Ferguson contemplated a film version of this idea. That never happened, and Ferguson eventually reconceptualized it as a play and then a live radio play. With a radio play, he notes, “You could do a big show but on a budget. ... It seemed like a fun way to approach it.”

It’s been performed several times, including a workshop last fall in New York City.

After Emerson Theater Collaborative staged Ferguson’s play “Snowbound” last year, he says, “I was, like, you’re in Connecticut, the story is set in Connecticut, that seems like a good fit.”

And then the Mark Twain House came into the picture after Ross contacted Lamarre. (They knew each other; she had produced his first play, “Gray Matters,” and, when he got to the Twain House, he hired Ross to do her Harriet Tubman show there.)

“It was serendipity,” Broach says.

ETC will perform “King Arthur in Contemporary Connecticut” at the Mark Twain House this weekend and then in Mystic next weekend.

Discussing getting to see the show staged at the Mark Twain House, Ferguson says, “It is great, and it’s exciting. ... But you want to bring your A-game if you’re going to do something in a venue like that.”

He says he does realize, too, that spinning a play off this Twain tale is a dangerous proposition, since the original is a classic.

Ferguson, who grew up in Coventry, R.I., worked for more than a decade on the West Coast as a writer and toiled in various film production jobs; he was, for instance, a producer on some indie films. He and his wife moved back east, to Massachusetts, to be closer to family after they had their first child.

In writing “King Arthur,” Ferguson says, he could call upon elements from the King Arthur myth.

“The fun thing about a character like that is, there’s a different version of the stories and different things you can pull at ... You can adapt and pick the bits that work for you and leave the rest alone,” he says.

The Emerson Theater Collaborative cast consists of seven actors who portray about 15 characters. They’ll be performing as if they are doing a radio play, so they’ll be reading from a script and speaking into microphones, and they’ll be using sound effects and music.

“It’s a funny show,” Broach says. “... Believe it or not, there’s some physical humor involved; there’s wrestling and fighting happening.”

And, she notes, there are plenty of twists.