Ah Sin

Ah Sin (1877), a play by Bret Harte, Mark Twain. [ Fifth Avenue Theatre, 35 perf.] Broderick (Edmund K. Collier), a “knave through circumstances over which he ought to have control,” attacks Uncle Billy Plunkett (P. A. Anderson), “the Champion Liar of Calaveras,” leaving him for dead and attributing the attack to mill owner York (Henry Crisp). Just as a lynch mob is about to hang York, the wily Chinaman Ah Sin (Charles T. Parsloe) solves the crime by connecting an incriminating coat to Broderick. The Augustin Daly production, developed from a character in Harte's poem, was a failure, but it is remembered because of the speech Mark Twain, dressed in white, gave at the end that many critics claimed was better than anything in the play. Sensing a poor reception, Mark Twain began by wryly telling the audience that the play was “intended rather for instruction than amusement” and suggesting, as an example, that “for the instruction of the young we have introduced a game of poker.”