BWW Reviews: Hal Holbrook Mesmerizes the Fox PAC's Audience in Riverside with his One-Man Show, MARK TWAIN TONIGHT!

Hal Holbrook's one-man show, MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! appeared at the Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside for a single performance on Saturday, January 17th. Watching the performance, I began to think I was seeing Mark Twain on stage, rather than Mr. Holbrook. However, I learned not to use the New Age term "channeling" to describe how the iconic performer brings the author and raconteur to life. "I'm an actor. Not a channeler," Mr. Holbrook emphasizes. "Acting is more eloquent than that."

Reviewing a production that has become a national institution seems almost as useless as commenting on the grammar and syntax in the Declaration of Independence - such a review would neither convince nor dissuade people of the document's eloquence. Furthermore, no matter what a reviewer says, Americans would be wise to study the Declaration - and to attend MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! - to learn about U.S. history. This story is therefore an appreciation piece for Twain's work and for Mr. Holbrook's sixty-year effort to ensure that his writing remains accessible to modern Americans.

At the Fox performance, Twain (and Mr. Holbrook) came out swinging. Congress, lobbyists, both major parties, guns, misuse of religion - none of them escaped Mark Twain's or Hal Holbrook's acerbic wit. Although much of the presentation consisted of social and political commentary as relevant today as when Twain first committed it to writing, Mr. Holbrook also acquainted the audience with Twain's ability to spin a tall tale. In one segment, Twain told a story about a fellow whose grandfather had owned a ram. Distilling the long story, the grandfather bent over and the ram apparently charged him and butted him in the derriere. In Twain's and Mr. Holbrook's able hands, the tale spun off into branches upon branches, almost like the sentence diagrams that the older folks among us learned how to draw in elementary school. The audience never did find out exactly what happened with the ram, but getting to the non-ending generated a lot of laughs.

How politicians managed to hold up their heads after Twain got through with them is something of a mystery:
• Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
• There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
• A teaspoon of brains would go a long way in Washington.
• Many reptiles are extinct, except in Washington.

Twain frequently skewered ordinary individuals, both American and foreign:
• In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
• If God gave man intellect, why doesn't he use it?
• The jaw will work without any help from the brain.

During Saturday night's performance, Mr. Holbrook, as Twain, told a hilarious story about Congress's passage of a bill to build a dam. After the bill became law, someone discovered that there was no water nearby, so Congress commissioned a study to determine the feasibility of building a river. The audience laughed uproariously at these and other jabs. Yet, when the discourse turned to serious religious or political topics, such as lobbyists acting as an invisible government, the audience was so enthralled that it was possible to hear the proverbial pin drop.

When Hal Holbrook first began performing as Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, and Twain's daughter, Clara, was still alive. Although Mr. Holbrook started the show at twenty-nine years of age and will turn ninety on February 17, 2015, it is always 1905 on stage, and Mark Twain is always seventy. In 1967, Mr. Holbrook performed the program on television. The biggest change from the television production (available on DVD) to the Fox performance is that Mr. Holbrook no longer lights Twain's trademark cigar, and instead, chomps on it unlit.

Although school groups attended the performance courtesy of the Fox Foundation, there seemed to be few other children or teens in the audience. This is unfortunate, because seeing and hearing Mr. Holbrook as Mark Twain is likely to instill appreciation for the man who may have been America's greatest author. It could also do much to instill appreciation for Mr. Holbrook, who, in addition to his long and illustrious career playing Twain and numerous other characters in theatre, film, and television, assists in the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley; the program for MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! asks theatergoers to donate to the project. Because Mark Twain has no direct descendants - his only grandchild, Nina Gabrilowitsch, died January 17, 1966, without children, Mr. Holbrook may be the individual who has done the most to keep Twain's legacy in the public's mind.

Thankfully, Mr. Holbrook has no plans to retire. "What else am I going to do? Play golf?" he asks rhetorically. "I tried that years ago and all I did was cuss."

For BWW's recent interview with Hal Holbrook, go to /los-angeles/article/BWW-Interviews-Hal-Holbrook-of-MARK-TWAIN-TONIGHT-Coming-to-Riversides-Fox-Performing-Arts-Center-20150112?PageSpeed=noscript .

To make a tax-deductible contribution to The Mark Twain Project, send your check made payable to The Mark Twain Project, c/o Mark Twain Papers & Project, University of California, The Bancroft Library - Room 475, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000. The Web site is www.marktwainproject.org/ .

To purchase a DVD of Mr. Holbrook's 1967 MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! television special, call 1-800-458-5887, or buy it through video retailers.

Hal Holbrook's autobiography, "Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain," published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is available in hardback, paperback, and electronic versions, through book retailers.

For Desert and Inland Empire residents who missed MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! in Riverside, they will have another chance to see it when the show appears at the McCallum Theatre, in Palm Desert, on Friday, January 23rd.

The Fox Performing Arts Center's upcoming productions in its Broadway series are MAMMA MIA! (February 4th and 5th); MEMPHIS (Feburary 13th and 14th); RAIN: BEATLES EXPERIENCE (March 25th and 26th); and LES MISERABLES (newly added, June 5th and 6th). For more information, go to http://www.riversidelive.com/ .

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