More about Hal Holbrook's performance:  I too am sorry
Camy had a bad experience; I guess we at the Clemens Center in Elmira
were luckier.  One very interesting thing happened.  At one point
Holbrook paused on stage, stared out at the audience, and said, "I've
forgotten my lines. ... That's the first time that's ever happened."
He seemed utterly surprised and  distressed.  After a few silent
moments, the auditorium burst into applause.  We hadn't noticed any
lapse, and if he had wanted to, he could have simply gone into other
material and we wouldn't have known.  I think we were saying we
appreciated his candor and maybe, "We don't care; we're just thrilled
to enjoy one more time your incredible performance at 80 years old."
A few folk thought his performance was too dark and had wished for
more "uplifting" humor.  But as we know that was also Mark Twain
himself especially in _his_ later years. In what likely
for many of us in Elmira was our last Holbrook performance, I sensed
that his material was a reaction to the current "mess o' Potamia" and
the continuous lies still told by this administration,  and probably
Holbrook has thought much about how Twain would react to the likes of
Bush etc.  We know Twain was an expert on liars.   That's why I
enjoyed the  postings here about how Twain would be similarly reacting
to the idiocy of Coulter and the rest of her ilk.   I would enjoy from
you all more speculation about how Twain would react to current
politics, and some of you might want to check out Howard Zinn's
"Patriotism and the Fourth of July," wherein he refers to Twain's
derision of what he called "monarchical patriotism."  Go to

http://www.alternet.org/story/38463/