Mark Twain Tonight Tickets

I respect the body of work that Hal Holbrook has compiled. However, I was dismayed at his Mark Twain performance 30 Sept in Knoxville TN. He appeared tired and bored throughout the performance. With the intermission, the show was much too long and ran for over 2 hours; I noticed several patrons who left and did not return after intermission. He garbled his words and made it difficult for me to catch his punch lines.

Mr. Holbrook's delivery was at many times unintelligible. We were not the only ones with this problem as many of our theatre neighbors were discussing the same thing. For a very expensive ticket (in my opinion) I was disappointed in the entire performance and would not recommend this show.

Holbrook needs to either go to sleep or to pasture or Alcoholics Anonymous. He mumble and slurred 80%. I heard a few laughs. Maybe from those that had heard it before when it was good.

The first half was funny. The second half, too serious. Unfortunately, he is getting too old to maintain a full show.

Holbrook is an American master...an icon. Sadly, very sadly, I must say it is time for him to retire.

I have to respect Hal Holbrook for getting up on that stage for 90 minutes at his age of 94, wow, what stamina, but he needs to cut this down to about an hour, and do more talking about political events of Samuel Jackson's era, and less talk of old stories about friends and their characters. Plus pretending he was asleep, that was a little bizarre and boring. I'm sorry but people were running out as fast as they could when it was over. This would be better In The Round than on a big stage.

We were very disappointed in the show. Holbrook was hard to understand, and we didn't see the point in his pretending to fall asleep while talking. Show was very slow moving.

If you ever have a chance to go see Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight! go. He is amazing and makes you want more.

I've attended "Mark Twain Tonight" previously and met Mr. Holbrook. This show was not everything I would have preferred. Mr. Holbrook, as always, is an outstanding actor, and his show is one of my favorites for many years. However, tonight was so different from others I have seen, and didn't include nearly as much humor, that I was just a little disappointed. His reading of Huck Finn was of course masterful but not what I wanted. He spent most of the time on Mr. Twain's "political" presentations, and that, too, is not what I wanted. Quite a few lines were very difficult to hear and perhaps this was due to acoustics or his mike but both my wife and I had trouble understanding some of his delivery. Having said all that, the show is still worth the money and Mr. Holbrook is still one of the best stage actors there is. I would pay money to go see him again; of that I have no doubt.

Sadly it was not what I expected. Holbrooks' acting was great but the subject matter was lacking. I expected to be laughing and chuckling over Twains writings. Hate to say it but it was very boring. We ended up leaving shortly after the intermission.

Hal Holbrock was spot on for first fifteen min and then lost his way. Disappointed

Actor William Gillette impersonated Twain on stage on June 5, 1877 with Mark Twain in the audience, and Twain complimented him. Gillette later made recordings of his impersonation that Hal Holbrook studied closely. Clara Clemens (Mark Twain's daughter) met with Hal Holbrook and endorsed him, and Holbrook interviewed Isabel Lyon (Twain's private secretary), "Bim" Pond (the son of Twain's lecture agent), and others to research Twain's mannerisms, gestures, and personality. Holbrook performed Twain in the late 1940s and began his solo performances in 1954. Sam Clemens was "Mark Twain" from 1863 to 1910--forty-seven years. Hal, now 91, has inhabited the role of "Mark Twain" even longer and has memorized and performed more of Twain's writings than Sam Clemens ever did. He feels Mark Twain in his bones--the happy skylarking humorous Mark Twain and the cynical social commentator. I'm a serious no-nonsense Twain scholar, but when I watch Hal Holbrook on stage I'm a kid again, and having a grand adventure just as exciting and meaningful as those of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Holbrook IS Mark Twain on stage, and if seeing Mark Twain is not on your bucket-list then reports of your own life have been an exaggeration.

My mom bought be a cassette (remember those) of one of Hal Holbrook's performances as Mark Twain and for 30 years I've been trying to make it to one of his live performances. And there were moments of this performance that were great. But there were many parts that were not. On the one hand, Mr. Holbrook is in amazing shape for being 91 and the fact he is still performing is remarkable. But there were many times where he was clearly a man in his 90th decade. He would often stammer and trip over words. In between segments (and sometime sentences) he would often appear to lose his train of thought, resulting in an awkward stretch of silence. Some parts of the performance were incredibly funny and you could see a hint of what once made these performances so great, but you had to squint to appreciate that. The 20-minute rant about Congress was neither funny nor particularly well executed and led to a significant portion of the audience leaving at intermission, myself included.

Hal Holbrook is now 90 years old and has transformed a man who died at the age of 74 into an immortal. I saw the original TV broadcast when I was a kid back in 1967 and even at that age was enthralled and thoroughly entertained. In college and grad school 10-20 years later I had opportunities to see this National Treasure (HH) play another National Treasure (MT) twice and considered myself a very luck person indeed. To see him do this performance once again (now as a retired person) is nothing short of miraculous. For the unfamiliar, this performance re-creates for us, now, the way people in the late 1800's-early 1900's would have actually experienced Mark Twain himself: live on stage telling his own stories and recounting his personal travels and experiences. He was arguably one of the earliest examples of the stand-up comedian. (Think John Stewart minus 150 years but at least equal with respect to IQ points#. Yes, I did not like a couple of specific things: I think whoever is in charge of such things should do a better job with sound. The first several minutes of the performance was marked by volume that was both a bit too loud and somewhat distorted and I believe many less familiar audience members may have missed a lot of good lines/build up because of this. This did improve over the course of the performance, perhaps they were tweaking it as time went on or maybe our ears adjusted. Of the performance itself, IMHO Mr. H did drag out the "drowsiness" of a story character a bit too long. This may work well in smaller venues like Ford's Theater in DC, but in a larger auditoriums somehow it seems rather more draining. Otherwise I enjoyed the performance immensely even though it contained much more "serious" material #i.e. regarding corporate interference in politics and hypocrisy in religion# than more amusing stories. But this is very well received in Wisconsin given our current state political situation. The fact that Twain was writing about these same issues over a hundred years ago actually raised a small hope in me that perhaps we too will somehow survive these times. Bottom line is: If you are at least passingly familiar with, and can appreciate Mark Twain's literary "voice" and are willing to tolerate some technical limitations you really ought to take the opportunity to enjoy what must likely be one of the few more actual live performances of "Mark Twain Tonight!" it's hard to imagine that anyone else will be able to resurrect Mark Twain other than the Deity Himself.

Hal Holbrook is amazing! Over 90 years of age and he has the whole thing memorized.. The shoe is funny and serious and wonderful.

Hal Holbrook is a living legend. He may be 90, but his energy us of a man half that age. I highly recommend this gem of storytelling.

I was one of the privileged to see Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight. I believe that is was the closest you could come to actually meeting Mark Twain and has inspired me to read more of Mark Twain's books.

At 90 Hal is still Mark Twain for this generation!

Hal Holbrook is delightful in his signature performance as Mark Twain. There is a twinkle in his eyes throughout. He is having a good time, as well as the audience is. The first half of the performance is a bit slow. One isn't quite sure whether some of the long pauses are calculated or are attributed to a loss of train of thought. Perhaps, Mark Twain had a propensity for "stream of consciousness"? The second half perked up a bit with clever quotes and perfect timing - deserving a standing ovation!

Hal Holbrook was once good at this. he now needs to retire.