As a grand finale in celebrating Arizona’s centennial, KAWC and other affiliates invited Hal Holbrook to provide an enchanting, philosophical one-man show depicting a 1905 rendition of Mark Twain in front of a packed, older audience Saturday night, March 3.
With the use of political satire that was eerily as relevant today as it was then, Holbrook’s witty rendition of Twain has continued to captivate audiences since March 6, 1954. The show emphasized comic tales that included falling asleep in the middle of a story, puffs of smoke preceding him onto the stage, and lengthy, thought provoking stories with quick and unexpected punchlines as was Twain’s dramatic and hilarious character. The performance also included excerpts from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and a more serious twist toward political discourse.
“I was surprised by how philosophical he was,” said Dr. Michael Miller after the show, “I didn’t expect that. Some of it was pretty serious, the political stuff. It made you think. I really liked it.”
“What does the role mean to you now….?” David Ng, from the Los Angeles Times blog spot asked Holbrook while interviewing him for the article Hal Holbrook speaks out on the political and the personal. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/05/hal-holbrook-speaks-out-against-republican-party-leaders.html
“The easiest way to describe what it means to me,“Holbrook replied, “is like this — when I sit in a hotel room, listening to the news, and listening to the idiots blabber in what they like to call “news” … if I didn’t have Twain to go on stage and attack this kind of foolishness, I would end up in the nuthouse.”
Holbrook received a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his 174 performances of Mark Twain Tonight! at the Forty-First Street Theatre in New York. He also received an Emmy Award nomination for the 1967 television broadcast on CBS.
At the age of 87, Holbrook still performs Twain two or three times a year. How fortunate we were to have had this golden opportunity to see it for ourselves.
