Actor Hal Holbrook will perform as Mark Twain this evening at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Holbrook has been bringing to life the larger than life Twain with his ever evolving and uncanny interpretations of Twain's witticisms in what may be the longest running show in theatre history.
Holbrook, who turns 82 Saturday, started characterizing Twain 53 years ago. As a student at Denison University in Ohio, he wrote a college honors project on the raconteur and writer and has been researching and channeling him ever since. In 1954, Holbrook's day job was working as an actor on the soap opera "A Brighter Day". His night job was performing his one man show as Twain at a club in Greenwich Village. Ed Sullivan caught his act and featured Holbrook as Twain on his show.
In 1959 after performing across small town America, Holbrook opened in New York at an off Broadway Theatre. The run away hit led to performing for President Eisenhower and being sponsored by the State Department to do the show in Europe. Holbrook's Twain act was the first American dramatic attraction allowed behind the Iron Curtain after World War II.
Holbrook has received honors he deserves. In 1966 he won a Tony Award, plus a Drama Critic's Award. His ninety minute taped CBS special was seen by 22 million in 1967. Life Magazine called Mark Twain Tonight!, "One of the treasures of American Theatre" and critics and Twain scholars applaud Holbrook for his physicality, Missouri drawl and mastery of Twain's works. Aside from portraying Twain, Holbrook's acting abilities in movies and television has thus far brought 12 Emmy nominations and 5 wins. There are more than a few women on the barrier island who remember Holbrook's TV role as Burt Reynolds's father in "Evening Shade". Unfortunately for them Holbrook is happily married to actress Dixie Carter, for whom he reportedly quit launching his sail boat for.
Twain, who would be 172 if still alive, used his tongue and pen as his sword. He was a natural born storyteller and is said to be the first writer to recognize that art could be created out of the American language.
As a reporter in San Francisco Twain received wide popularity when he traveled to France and Italy and made fun of both American and European prejudices and mannerisms from his experiences which were printed in 'The Innocents Abroad".
In his famous novels, most notably The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and also in his prolific quotations, Twain dished on topics others were afraid to mention like the killing in war, slavery, and the vices of men. Much of what he said then could apply today.
Twain is also hailed as the original stand-up comedian, as he stood up on railroad platforms telling stories. He considered humor to be mankind's "saving thing after all" and usually concluded his social critiques and commentaries with jokes and twists that listeners and readers didn't expect. He was the straight man; but he was the funny man too. Often, he'd speak about occurrences in ordinary life, setting the listener or reader up to feel relaxed and nodding in agreement in a been-there-done-that fashion, before pitching a hilarious fast ball punch line out of left field that would shock the listener, while maintaining a poker face and doing, "his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it."
One might wonder what Twain, with all of his strong likes and dislikes, would say about Holbrook impersonating him for all of these years! After all, Twain hated hypocrisy, dishonesty, and though I can't find a quote to support this; he probably hated people who pretended to be something they are not and would tell that person so straight to their face. Or in print somehow.
But on the other hand, Twain hated work as much as he hated liars and manipulators. "I do not like work even when someone else does it" he noted in "The Lost Napoleon". In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he said, "Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."
Considering Holbrook's success in movies and TV, he was not obliged, "…to do." a characterization of Twain. In fact, I think Twain would applaud Holbrook's impersonation. Twain would assuredly congratulate Holbrook on his cleverness at "play"-ing him along with those millions of homo sapiens who recognize it.
My favorite Twain quote? "I didn't want to work. All I wanted was employment. So I became a newspaper reporter."
If you'd like to be led down the garden path on such topics as politics and religion by Holbrook-as-Twain only to have the hose turned on you once you feel smug and comfortable, call Ruth Eckerd Hall's box office at 727.712.2774 or go online to RuthEckerdHall.com for tickets and other pertinent information.
Twain's Timeless Observations
On Americans
We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty.
- Foreign Critics speech, 1890
No people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed must being in blood, whatever may answer afterward.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
....every citizen of the republic ought to consider himself an unofficial policeman, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and their execution.
- "Traveling With a Reformer"
Man has not a single right which is the product of anything but might.
Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
The government is not best which secures mere life and property--there is a more valuable thing--manhood.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
On Human Nature
If all men were rich, all men would be poor.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, ostentation, arrogance, tyranny.
- Mark Twain, a Biography
On the whole, it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
- Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903
...among human beings jealousy ranks distinctly as a weakness; a trademark of small minds; a property of all small minds, yet a property which even the smallest is ashamed of; and when accused of its possession will lyingly deny it and resent the accusation as an insult.
- Letters from the Earth
On Dogs
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
- Mark Twain, a Biography
