Holbrook and Twain

I saw Hal Holbrook’s “Mark Twain Tonight” in the early 1960s in Miami. I think I was a first year college student. A luminous image of the spotlighted actor in his white suit and hair, waving his cigar around, spilling wit and wisdom from the stage, stayed with me all these years. He must have been 36 or so and did a grand imitation of an old man. It was the first professional live theatre I’d ever seen. I was enthralled.

Growing up mostly in small Florida towns to working class parents, the closest thing to theatre I’d known was the weekly radio broadcast of the Grand Ol’ Opry, and yet, I was drawn to this essentially literary experience like a bee to orange blossoms. You do come into the world with your own nature, and those you’re born to should learn to honor that.

Seeing the show advertised this year, I was astonished. Born in 1925, Holbrook’s 90 years old. He’s been performing this one-man show more than six decades, started when he was a college student. His Denver performance was at the Buell, but he was also scheduled for a Q & A after the screening of the documentary, “Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey,” at the film center, a more intimate space. We’re film society members and were delighted.

During that talkback Holbrook launched into several Twain bits, has hundreds of them, keeps many more fresh in his head than he’ll need for a show. Did I tell you he’s 90?

“You never get tired of this guy,” he said, and gave us an example. Leafing through a book he hadn’t looked at in years, Holbrook came across an excerpt from Tom Sawyer Abroad he’d never noticed before. What’s in the news right now? he asked. The Middle East, of course. The chaos and violence there. Twain wrote this 120 years ago, yet it has relevance today. And he launched into the opening of what follows:

Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom told us what it was. It was a crusade.

“What’s a crusade?” I says.

He looked scornful, the way he’s always done when he was ashamed of a person, and says:

“Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you don’t know what a crusade is?”

“No,” says I, “I don’t. And I don’t care to, nuther. I’ve lived till now and done without it, and had my health, too. But as soon as you tell me, I’ll know, and that’s soon enough… Now, then, what’s a crusade?”…

“Why, a crusade is a kind of war.”

I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly ca’m.

“A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim.”

“Which Holy Land?”

“Why, the Holy Land—there ain’t but one.”

“What do we want of it?”

“Why, can’t you understand? It’s in the hands of the paynim, and it’s our duty to take it away from them.”

“How did we come to let them git hold of it?”

“We didn’t come to let them git hold of it. They always had it.”

“Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don’t it?”

“Why of course it does. Who said it didn’t?”

I studied over it, but couldn’t seem to git at the right of it, no way. I says:

“It’s too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it, would it be right for him to—”

“Oh, shucks! you don’t know enough to come in when it rains, Huck Finn. It ain’t a farm, it’s entirely different. You see, it’s like this. They own the land, just the mere land, and that’s all they DO own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven’t any business to be there defiling it. It’s a shame, and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them.”

“Why, it does seem to me it’s the most mixed-up thing I ever see! Now, if I had a farm and another person—”

“Don’t I tell you it hasn’t got anything to do with farming? Farming is business, just common low-down business: that’s all it is, it’s all you can say for it; but this is higher, this is religious, and totally different.”

“Religious to go and take the land away from people that owns it?”

“Certainly; it’s always been considered so.”

From Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer Abroad, 1894, with gratitude to Hal Holbrook, actor and Twain scholar

 

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4 Responses to Holbrook and Twain

  1. Patti Bippus says:

    Love it! It’s amazing how some things never ever change, they just more more complicated. There is certainly a magnetism about that part of that world that draws religious crusaders. How many eons will it continue? And, why, I wonder do we “babes in the woods” think we can direct it?

  2. winnie barrett says:

    what a delightful read. and so timeless.
    And being 90 and still goin’ strong, that gets my attention!

    XXOO,
    Winnie

  3. Jana Clark says:

    Wonderful, Pat! What a great memory and this quote is really worth noting considering and praying over! Who knew? Keep ’em comin’, girl

  4. Gregg Painter says:

    I saw “Mark Twain Tonight” twice, about 40 years between the two shows. Just amazing. I wasn’t expecting much the first time, sitting way in the back in the Poor Students section, but: wow.

    Holbrook was also great in his role as Ron Franz in “Into the Wild,” Sean Penn’s 2007 film.

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