Is He Dead?
Is He Dead?: Mark Twain's farcical adventure takes place in 1846 Paris. It is Paris 1846 and painter Jean-Francois Millet and his students Agamemnon "Chicago" Buckner, Hans "Duchy" von Bismarck and Phelim O'Shaughnessy are all indebted to the cruel picture dealer Bastien Andre. Andre also holds a debt over Papa Leroux, father of Marie, Millet's girlfriend and Cecile, Chicago's on-again off-again girlfriend. Andre informs Papa Leroux that he will forgive the debt if he can marry Marie, to which Leroux refuses. With one day left for Leroux and the artists to pay off their respective loans, the young men attempt to sell their art at an auction. The only attendant, Thorpe, refuses to purchase one of the paintings, though he admires them, because Millet is still alive. Inspired, Chicago hatches a plan to give Millet a terminal disease and send him to the Barbary Coast to live out his final days. The real Millet can then disguise himself as his (fictional) twin sister Widow Daisy Tillou. Once dead, the value of Millet's works will sky-rocket, allowing the men to pay Andre. Miraculously, the plans works and makes all three men wealthy! The plan soon spirals wildly out of control when both Andre and Papa Leroux confess love to the Widow and an Inspector Lefoux (Cecile in disguise) starts asking too many questions. The day of Millet's funeral is at hand and the young artists are out of ideas. It is now up to the Widow to sort through the chaos and reunite the appropriate lovers.
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