I was not expecting the show to be so impactful. I was moved, and I got the sense that the whole audience was too. There was no question of the deep respect the audience expressed in their engagement with Kilmer during the Q&A, and also the deep respect Kilmer expressed for both Mark Twain and Mary Baker Eddy.    

Besides being a wonderfully colorful way to portray the ever colorful Mark Twain, the creative inclusion of Mary Baker Eddy in the broad mix of topics in was especially interesting to me. I had seen a glimpse of Kilmer’s earliest historical work on “Mark Twain and Mary Baker Eddy,” scenes of which he did as a staged theatrical reading through a video broadcast from the Mary Baker Eddy Library. I realized watching CINEMA TWAIN how much Kilmer has blazed a new trail for creative approaches to biography of Eddy, a trail which I have followed with CROSSING SWORDS. He opened my thought to possibilities.  

But more than this, he has opened the thought of Mary Baker Eddy fans everywhere to the idea of creative biography about her life, and her relationships with other famous Americans. I say this because when I first began to circulate CROSSING SWORDS as a manuscript among Mary Baker Eddy fans (who as a group take how she is represented to the public very seriously), despite the edgy topic (marriage and sexuality) and the new territory of literary nonfiction drama, I was consistently pleasantly surprised at the positive and open-minded response I received from Eddy fans. In conversations, I could refer to Kilmer’s work, and I would be met with knowing nods. The Red Sea parted, and I could pass through untouched.      

I do hope that someday Kilmer succeeds in producing his “Mark Twain and Mary Baker Eddy” movie. But CINEMA TWAIN, besides being a big step in that direction, is in itself a triumph, a complete idea, a work of art. 

Cheers to you, Val! And thank you for leading the way. 

Crossing Swords: Mary Baker Eddy vs. Victoria Claflin Woodhull and the Battle for the Soul of Marriage by Cindy Peyser Safronoff is available on Amazon, by special order from your favorite local bookstore, or through a growing number of public libraries, including Seattle Public Library. 

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“Figuratively speaking, Mrs. Eddy is already as tall as the Eiffel tower,” wrote American author Mark Twain. “She is adding surprisingly to her stature every day.” The newly built Eiffel Tower, the main symbol of the 1889 world’s fair in Paris, was by far the tallest building in the world at that time. It was hailed as a model of courageous innovation and achievement—a wondrous monument to man’s ability. Twain’s comparison was a tribute to Mary Baker Eddy’s towering accomplishments and her unique fame in the world. . . . To women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony, Eddy’s towering accomplishments were a wondrous monument to woman’s ability.”

 As the history of the Eiffel Tower shows, towering accomplishments are not always fully recognized and appreciated while they are being created. But eventually, their value is seen by all, and it becomes hard to image the world without those landmarks. Here’s to celebrating all such towering accomplishments! 

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