'Is he dead?'

Uriel Achilleus is a versatile young actor, but he's learned to be even more nuanced as the lead character in Mark Twain's 1898 play "Is He Dead?"

"I'm a guy playing a guy playing a girl," said the Cape Girardeau Central High School junior, who will bring French artist Jean-Francois Millet to life tonight during the show's debut performance at 7 p.m. in the Richard D. Kinder Performance Hall.

Adapted by David Ives, the play is a slapstick comedy that follows the travails of Millet, a poor painter in debt to a nefarious art dealer named Bastien Andre.

Not only has Andre foreclosed on Millet, but he has threatened the artist with debtor's prison unless Millet's love interest, Marie, marries Andre instead.

Reasoning that art only increases in value after an artist dies, Millet fakes his own death and starts to do well financially, so he dresses as a widowed "sister" who manages to attract much more attention than he bargained for -- even from his erstwhile father-in-law.

In the Mark Twain play "Is He Dead?", Uriel Achilleus plays the French painter Jean-Francois Millet and his fictional twin sister Daisy Tillou, during a rehearsal Tuesday at Cape Girardeau Central High School.Fred Lynch

Millet's primary dilemma is to figure out how to come back from the dead, fend off his would-be suitors, and keep Marie from marrying his nemesis.

"It's a lot of fun," Achilleus said of portraying the character. "I like the challenge."

Not only that, but a female actress dresses like a man to spy on Millet's "sister" because of her jealously over one of the fictitious damsel's suspected relationships.

"We have two cross-dressing issues in the show, and it's cool because (the actors) have to test their vocal abilities as well as their acting abilities," said Sabrina Sander, student stage manager of the production.

The main challenge for all concerned is trying not to burst out laughing at each other's antics.

In the Mark Twain play Is He Dead? , Uriel Achilleus, right, who plays the French painter Jean-Francois Millet and his fictional twin sister Daisy Tillou, and Zac Glenn, who plays Bastien Andre, rehearse a scene Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016 at Cape Girardeau Central High School.Fred Lynch

"We're still having trouble breaking character on stage," Sander said.

For Achilleus, it's a fine balance between being too goofy and not goofy enough.

"I don't really know if I'm being too cheesy or too not cheesy, so you have to kind of find a balance," he said, later adding, "That's probably going to be the hardest part of the show, not laughing."

And forget about heels and pantyhose.

"The strangest part of playing a woman is going from a negative A cup to a C," he said.

In the Mark Twain play Is He Dead? , Uriel Achilleus, left, who plays the French painter Jean-Francois Millet and his fictional twin sister Daisy Tillou, and Zac Glenn, who plays Bastien Andre, rehearse a scene Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016 at Cape Girardeau Central High School.Fred Lynch

Kimi Wibbenmeyer, the teacher who facilitates the student-led theater program at Central, said the play was chosen as part of this year's theme of "I'm Not Dead Yet."

Borrowed from a line in Monty Python's "Spamalot," the theme is meant to celebrate the end of some tough times for Wibbenmeyer, who recently lost a close family member and suffered an injury, and to remind people to appreciate others while they're around, but in a fun way.

Since she first saw the adaptation of Twain's original play, she said she knew she wanted to work it into the department's performance schedule. Now just happened to be the time.

"I never laughed so hard in my life," she said, recalling the original performance.

Plus, the play is unique because it was discovered in Twain's papers long after he died and then first adapted for modern theater in the early 2000s.

After tonight's performance, three more installments of "Is He Dead?" will be shown: Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $7, and the Saturday matinee will be a sensory-friendly version of the show.

ljones@semissourian.com

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