Mark Twain Tonight! Is a one-man play devised by Hal Holbrook, in which he depicts Mark Twain giving a dramatic recitation selected from several of his (Twain's) writings, with an emphasis on the comic ones. However, a lengthy excerpt from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is always included.
The recitation's genesis was a show that Holbrook performed with his first wife Ruby where she would interview him portraying famous people in history, including Twain. Holbrook revised the concept into a one-man show in the 1950s, first performing it at the Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania in 1954. He made his first New York appearance as Twain in the Off-Broadway engagement in 1959 and premiered it on Broadway in 1966. Holbrook's performance was first noticed by New York producer John Lotas at The Lambs Club in Manhattan. Lotas presented the show at the Forty-First Street Theatre, where it ran for 174 performances. He won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for that appearance and an Emmy Award nomination for the 1967 television broadcast (which was produced by David Susskind) on CBS.
Holbrook continues to tour in the play (on Broadway as recently as 2006) and alternates the material that he performs. The original program from the 1959 Off-Broadway engagement included the note “While Mr. Twain’s sections will come from the list below, we have been unable to pin him down as to which of them he will do. He claims this would cripple his inspiration. However, he has generously conceded to a printed program for those who are in distress and wish to fan themselves.” This still appears on programs for the show, as of 2012.
On the occasion of Mr. Clemens' 175th birthday, Holbrook performed Mark Twain Tonight! in Elmira, NY, at the Clemens Center in front of a sell-out crowd. The evening began with the singing of happy birthday to Mr. Clemens followed by Holbrook's appearance on stage. Remarkably, 2012 marks the 58th consecutive year that Holbrook has performed Mark Twain Tonight!.
Famous quotes containing the words mark twain, mark, twain and/or tonight:
“This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript and wound off with a sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took the first prize. This composition was considered to be the very finest effort of the evening.... It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which the word “beauteous” was over-fondled, and human experience referred to as “life’s page,” was up to the usual average.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known for these many years. I am filled with wonder of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“And tonight our skins, our bones,
that have survived our fathers,
will meet, delicate in the hold,
fastened together in an intricate
lock. Then one of us will shout,
“My need is more desperate!””
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)