Mark Twain Tonight!: A Classic That's Always Brand New

It doesn't take long to realize, compared with the solo performances we're accustomed to seeing on Broadway, just how one person a show Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight! really is. There are no credits for an author, director or designers for the set, costume, lights or sound. The play is performed on a stage draped in simple black curtains with a podium on one side and a table and chair on the other. The lighting design is lights up/lights down. The sound design is no more than making sure Mr. Holbrook's body mic is turned on. Richard Costabile is listed as the Production Supervisor, and I would assume it's his job to see that everything is in order. There's the usual technical crew, of course, but as far as artistic decisions go, Mark Twain Tonight! seems to be entirely a one-man operation.

But then, Hal Holbrook has been doing this play every year since 1954, so he should know better than anyone what makes it work. Mark Twain Tonight! may not have been the first solo play where an actor portrays a historical figure, but it's the one that really popularized the idea. Beginning at age 29, Holbrook began developing a show made out of excerpts from Twain's writings, touring colleges and small towns. He opened off-Broadway in 1959, winning an Obie Award before taking it on the road again. A 1966 return to New York, this time Broadway, earned Holbrook the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the next year 22 million people saw Mark Twain Tonight! as a 90-minute TV special. The current 3 week engagement is his second return to Broadway, having revived the show in 1977.

At 80 years of age, ten years older than Twain at the time of the play, Hal Holbrook gives a performance that should be admired and cherished. It's a tricky juggling act, replicating a public appearance by a man who wasn't an actor and making him seem at ease on stage without appearing too professional. There are a few times when Twain meanders about the stage a bit or spends a little extra time at the podium checking his notes -- perhaps that's an artistic choice or perhaps that's the actor's slightly faded memory -- but in any case it gives the evening a greater sense of realism. We truly lose the fine actor Hal Holbrook and are transported back in time to spend an evening with one of America's great literary minds. The fact that we're sitting in the gorgeous Brooks Atkinson Theatre, which opened less than 20 years after the play takes place, and that there is little in the way of modern technology visible while watching the stage, adds to the authenticity. His drawl may be hard to understand at first, but with active listening it clears up shortly.

Even though Holbrook has played the role over 2,000 times, it's never exactly the same show. Through the years, the actor has accumulated and memorized over 15 hours worth of material for this 2 hour performance, taken from over 70 sources (essays, speeches, books, short stories, articles, etc.), and weaves excerpts from them into an extemporaneous talk Mark Twain may have given to an audience in 1905. Each night the program is unplanned with Holbrook selecting what to talk about as he goes along.

So extensive is the Mark Twain library that the actor can often find material that relates directly to today's current events, causing the audience to applaud in agreement with statements written over 100 years ago as they relate to what's happening now. That was the case last night whenever Twain's words were critical of government, religious intolerance and the press:

In politics and religion we just feel. We don't want to hear the other side.

First God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made congress.

When you find yourself on the side of the majority, you should pause and reflect.

But the harshest criticisms are for those of us who allow the press to persuade our opinions with selective reporting:

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.

The press has made light of dishonesty in high places until we have a population that smiles at dishonesty and sometimes applauds it.

It's a free press, but the public opinion that should hold it in bounds has degraded down to its own level.

To further exemplify his cry for independent thinking, he performed the passage from Huckleberry Finn where the title character is faced with the choice of hiding the escaped slave Jim from bounty hunters, an action he was raised to believe would be sinful, or following his conscience and helping him hide. Holbrook's Twain passionately throws himself into all four roles with the energy and verve of a 29-year-old.

It's not all politics and social criticism. Twain does offer more lighthearted observations.

"Eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like and don't do what you want to do and that will add ten years to your life.", he advises as he lights a cigar.

"I was born modest, but it wore off.", he assures us.

Some of Mark Twain's observations may seem a bit like jokes we've heard a hundred times before, but that's only because so little of human behavior has changed since the 19th Century. The brilliance of the man was the eloquence (and sometimes determined lack of eloquence) with which he expressed the humor of this still fledgling country. Likewise, in this era of solo shows featuring video projections, incidental music, elaborate sets and actors playing a multitude of roles, Mark Twain Tonight! may seem to lack the variety of stimulus some theatre-goers require. But the brilliance of Mr. Holbrook lies in his trust of this classic material to stand on its own and his ability to capture our attention with a simple, earnest presentation.

Spend all the millions you want. The true magic of theatre comes from a play like this.