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'Mark Twain Tonight!' | The BSB Podcast · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  Mark Twain was one of the great American authors with works such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
• 0:07
  However, in this episode of the Box Seat Babes podcast, we'll be looking at a different side of Mark Twain.
• 0:13
  Richard Thomas recently brought his one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight, to the Fisher Theater, channeling the humorous through a series of readings and monologues in Twain's
• 0:20
  own words.
• 0:21
  Spoiler warning, we will be discussing the touring production of Mark Twain tonight, so if you want to go into the show without any preconceived notions, pause this video and return
• 0:30
  when you've seen it.
• 0:31
  If you're still here, welcome to the show.
• 0:33
  And joining me is Ryann Ferguson, honorary Box Seat Babe forevermore.
• 0:37
  Thank you so much for joining me and for attending the show.
• 0:40
  Well, thanks so much for taking me to the show and having me back on.
• 0:44
  It's always a joy to join the podcast.
• 0:47
  Especially when we don't nail that intro and we just keep sitting here like no one will ever see those great outtakes, but there was quite a few of them.
• 0:55
  ah So we're going to jump right in.
• 1:01
  How familiar are you with Mark Twain's works?
• 1:03
  Because I gotta be honest, somehow we didn't cover those in high school where I went.
• 1:08
  You know what, I'm a bad former creative writing student too, as well.
• 1:14
  I think I maybe read Huckleberry Finn.
• 1:19
  And that's a very maybe when I was a teenager, but not familiar, not familiar at all.
• 1:29
  I think it's interesting because I don't think that like this was a part of the curriculum.
• 1:33
  Like we had William Shakespeare, we had some other really great like American authors that we covered.
• 1:38
  for some reason, Mark Twain was not part of the like the school the school districts desire for English classes.
• 1:45
  I just don't understand where it went.
• 1:47
  it almost falls into that Shakespeare category though where it's like the language can be kind of tough to teach.
• 1:54
  Sure, that would make sense.
• 1:56
  you know, the writing style.
• 1:57
  And so I think they kind of have to pick and choose.
• 2:00
  would make sense.
• 2:01
  mean, this is a man who, first off, his name was not Mark Twain.
• 2:05
  Found that out researching this.
• 2:08
  His name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, whose pen name was Mark Twain.
• 2:15
  But, I mean, he was born in 1835.
• 2:18
  He wrote these works at the end of the 19th century.
• 2:24
  They're maybe not as applicable to the language of like, it's old English almost in a way, or it's, while they're very quintessential American stories, um they're not always easily
• 2:39
  accessible for probably gen pop of English classes.
• 2:43
  Yeah.
• 2:45
  Well, and I think it's also one of those things where it's some of the topics that they touch on, not to discredit in any way, but there's almost sort of, I don't want to say
• 2:56
  better works, but like, you know what I mean?
• 2:57
  Like more influential in today's society works, like of mice and men and different things like that, that cover the same types of topics that he's covering, maybe in a more
• 3:08
  digestible way for people.
• 3:11
  I'm going to be very honest, the only way I really know Mark Twain before this play I should say, was Easy A from 2010 where there's like a running gag about Mark Twain and the
• 3:24
  adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• 3:26
  Yep.
• 3:28
  I think.
• 3:30
  preconceived notions.
• 3:33
  My biggest influence from it was probably, doesn't he have a whole section at Disney, at least in Florida?
• 3:42
  Isn't there an island or something at Disney?
• 3:46
  I remember going and being like, what is that?
• 3:50
  You have to take a little boat to get there.
• 3:52
  fact that is now gone.
• 3:57
  They, they, um, are replacing it with, with villain Island, think, or they're like changing it to villain land.
• 4:05
  But yes, there is, there is a, an Island that you can go to.
• 4:10
  forgot about it.
• 4:10
  I blocked that out until you just said that.
• 4:12
  Yes.
• 4:13
  You have to take out like a, like a paddle boat across the river to get there.
• 4:17
  yep.
• 4:19
  Didn't have like a bunch of like tree houses and stuff to like climb through.
• 4:22
  I like, I don't know that I ever went but you could like see it like from and I like just remember being like that's weird.
• 4:30
  Who's, who's all this about?
• 4:33
  Yeah, I mean, but that does kind of sum up who he is like he is very much writing for back then the adventures of America, know, you're writing for the American the traditional
• 4:45
  American stories these these adventures of like Tom Sawyer, know in his his growing up in the The south, know during the 1830s 1840s and stuff like that.
• 4:58
  Like there's a lot of these like quintessential almost
• 5:01
  American stories then that have impacts of today, but they're not necessarily what we're studying today in school.
• 5:13
  Also just rather apparently, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was originally considered a commercial failure, which I think explains also who he was writing for back then.
• 5:24
  I I feel like almost that's so many people from back then though.
• 5:29
  I mean, look at Emily Dickinson.
• 5:30
  They didn't even find her poems until after she was dead.
• 5:34
  That's fair.
• 5:34
  That's fair.
• 5:36
  Because it wasn't always about being commercially successful.
• 5:38
  was, that's kind of, I recently read the thing that said like, studios should make movies for art, not for profit.
• 5:45
  And I feel like that's kind of what it was back then.
• 5:46
  You were writing for the art of it, not necessarily for the profit of it.
• 5:50
  Like obviously profits are nice because we live in capitalistic societies.
• 5:57
  But it doesn't necessarily translate to like what that was back then, you know, because
• 6:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 6:02
  people didn't always read at a high reading level and they didn't always have money for books and stuff like that.
• 6:08
  there's a lot we can get into about that, but that makes a lot of sense that maybe that isn't successful um as well.
• 6:16
  So I think that leads me to say then, you probably hadn't heard of Mark Twain tonight prior to me being like the, go to the Fisher Theater with me.
• 6:26
  No, not at all.
• 6:29
  So what did you think like going into it as I was just, I'm like, I invited you, I invite you to a lot of shows.
• 6:34
  You see a lot of like, I will say this, you say, you see a lot of niche shows with me that a lot of other people don't always turn up for.
• 6:40
  And I feel like this is one of those that is very niche.
• 6:42
  What did you think when I was like, let's go see Mark Twain?
• 6:44
  was like, sounds like a good excuse to get out of the house and do something fun that I wouldn't normally do.
• 6:52
  I that this is one of those shows that a lot of people wouldn't normally do.
• 6:56
  I think part of that has to, we have to go back to where it began.
• 7:01
  So I don't know if you knew this, but this was actually a revival.
• 7:03
  This had been done back in the 1950s by a man called Hal Holbrook, which I've heard of.
• 7:13
  I think I even said this when I interviewed Richard Thomas.
• 7:15
  was like, I've heard of him, but I couldn't tell you any of his work.
• 7:20
  Yeah.
• 7:21
  ah Looking at his list, did things like uh Magnum Force, Creepshow, Wall Street.
• 7:27
  He was in some things that we knew.
• 7:29
  um All of the President's Men, but this was a man who deeply loved Mark Twain.
• 7:37
  So much so that he decided to pen a one-man play where he depicts Mark Twain on stage talking as if he's Mark Twain.
• 7:45
  um So I think that's the amount that I knew about the show going into it.
• 7:51
  I was just like, okay, we're getting Richard Thomas on stage pretending to be Mark Twain.
• 7:56
  Now I want you to, if you would for me, we walked into this theater, can you set the stage literally of what was going on here?
• 8:03
  Because there wasn't much going on on the stage.
• 8:07
  no, wasn't it like a very broken down living room type set almost, where it was like a chair and one of those old tiny desks off to the side, but it was all in the center of the
• 8:22
  stage.
• 8:23
  It was a very tiny, tiny stage.
• 8:28
  Correct.
• 8:28
  There was two distinct areas.
• 8:31
  And granted, the Fisher Theater, it is not the biggest stage we have in Detroit.
• 8:35
  Obviously that is the Opera House.
• 8:38
  That's where some of our bigger shows go.
• 8:39
  But the Fisher is still a pretty big stage.
• 8:43
  And most of the time they fill that stage up.
• 8:45
  But when we walked in there, there was two distinct areas.
• 8:47
  There was a podium.
• 8:49
  They had like a little setup over by the podium.
• 8:51
  And there was the chair and the desk and the lamp.
• 8:53
  And I think there was a rug.
• 8:55
  I could be wrong.
• 8:56
  uh
• 8:58
  would believe that.
• 8:59
  But that was set up on the other side of the stage.
• 9:03
  And I walked in and I was like, what are we getting ourselves into?
• 9:08
  What is about to go on?
• 9:09
  Because that's not normally what we see when we see a show as we're walking in there, correct?
• 9:13
  No, no, normally it's, you know, curtains closed, big hole sets.
• 9:19
  I'm trying to think if I've ever been to a show that was like this pared down.
• 9:23
  Not that I can think of.
• 9:25
  Can you?
• 9:26
  of one and you were there.
• 9:29
  Forbidden Broadway was very stripped out.
• 9:31
  that was the one that popped into my head when you said, can think of one.
• 9:35
  was like, Forbidden Broadway?
• 9:36
  Yeah, that would make sense.
• 9:39
  Because they were bringing stuff.
• 9:42
  That's true, but they were kind of bringing stuff on stage as they were going.
• 9:46
  Like it was very like...
• 9:49
  Because they were constantly changing between shows.
• 9:53
  Exactly.
• 9:54
  And this one was literally, I think the best way to kind of phrase it is it was kind of like a uh standup comedian-esque set.
• 10:02
  You know what I mean?
• 10:03
  Of like, you're just there.
• 10:05
  I was thinking about that earlier too.
• 10:07
  was like, you were to ask me to describe it, I was like, and I mean this in the best possible way, it was like uh story time with a method actor.
• 10:17
  Correct, exactly what it was.
• 10:19
  uh Which we will talk about Richard Thomas a little bit because uh I think that he did a very good job of that.
• 10:26
  But truly, the concept was they wanted him to be the person, Mark Twain, on stage giving speeches.
• 10:33
  And so basically it was like, what would happen if a politician was touring and talking?
• 10:39
  Or what would it be if an author, your favorite author,
• 10:42
  I actually went uh to a book signing a year ago and the author was just on stage with a chair talking.
• 10:48
  And so it's interesting because that's exactly the feel of this was it was like one person is going around America to tell America what's going on.
• 10:56
  It happens to be Mark Twain, which is so interesting for a show because I don't think we have shows like this out there right now.
• 11:04
  No, none that I can think of.
• 11:07
  There's one local production, I literally just interviewed them and they're doing an evening with Charles Dickens, who's reading A Christmas Carol.
• 11:17
  And when I interviewed them, said, I saw Mark Twain tonight recently, and that sounds very similar where it's one person pretending to be a real person on stage giving a show.
• 11:29
  And it's cool.
• 11:31
  because it's so different.
• 11:32
  We don't see people, you don't see a lot of one man shows.
• 11:35
  You don't see a lot of people going up on stage and just baring it all for everyone to see.
• 11:39
  No, because I think when most people think about going to see a show, it's the musicals, it's the plays, it's the big productions, let's get dressed up, go out to dinner, let's go
• 11:48
  see the show.
• 11:49
  It's not ah something that's usually so pared down um and quiet like this.
• 11:55
  It felt more intimate versus big production.
• 12:01
  You are 100 % correct about that.
• 12:03
  So many people turn up, and I think that's why musicals are so prevalent right now.
• 12:06
  People show up for musicals.
• 12:08
  They show up and they show out for musicals.
• 12:10
  But you don't always see people show up for plays.
• 12:12
  You don't always see people show up for like experimental theater, because this is technically what this falls into.
• 12:17
  Because you're experimenting with the idea of like what is is and we had a pretty good turnout, but we also didn't have a full house.
• 12:24
  You know what I mean?
• 12:24
  So like this was not a show that everybody was turning out to because it's not everybody's cup of tea.
• 12:29
  And that was very obvious when we kind of walked in there.
• 12:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:33
  I think I even made a comment to you about it when we walked in.
• 12:37
  Yeah.
• 12:38
  And in fact, we were sitting in probably the most populous area right in the middle.
• 12:41
  You know what I mean?
• 12:41
  Like, towards the back as well, because there was, we weren't even that far back.
• 12:47
  Like, there was just, this was not a show that drew a lot of people out there, but in my eyes, it was one of the, maybe the most interesting ones because it was so different.
• 12:56
  So before we jump into the show itself, I just want to talk about one thing too.
• 13:00
  So the staging was very patriotic, which I think is a time of reference.
• 13:07
  Like it's a good referral to the time that the show kind of takes place.
• 13:11
  It was simplistic.
• 13:12
  There was definitely a little bit of red, white and blue.
• 13:14
  There's a little bit of color.
• 13:14
  uh The show definitely talked about America quite a bit with the way the world is currently standing with the political climates.
• 13:24
  Do you think that hurts a show like this or do you think that it helps a show like this?
• 13:28
  think there's importance in recognizing where we came from.
• 13:32
  And I think that's a concept that a lot of people don't fully grasp.
• 13:37
  um Because it's so easy to get tied up in everything that was wrong, that we sometimes forget that it was the wrong things that got us to where we are now.
• 13:50
  Because we learned from those things.
• 13:52
  ah So no, I don't think that it hurts a show like this.
• 13:57
  Um, but I don't know that it helps either as far as like turnout type stuff goes.
• 14:02
  I would agree with that.
• 14:03
  So I do wonder sometimes when things like this happen of like, you want to bring people in, you don't want to be too polarizing, which I do think that this show, even though it
• 14:11
  had a um patriotic look, he did examine America through a very, um like a flat lens.
• 14:21
  Like you looked at it like a very, like everything was open for interpretation and for discussion.
• 14:25
  ah But I did wonder if like, is this show,
• 14:30
  Are there going to be some people that are not going to go see it because it feels patriotic?
• 14:33
  Cause it's something like Mark Twain who is like quintessential America again, 1800s, very patriotic.
• 14:40
  I wondered, just was like, does this impact it?
• 14:43
  I am sure that it impacts some people turning out.
• 14:46
  I think that this definitely already was a niche show.
• 14:49
  I think that, um, getting the general population to buy into some of that who don't understand what maybe what it is are going to be slightly turned off.
• 14:59
  it reminds me of parade.
• 15:01
  You know, which is a very dark time in America.
• 15:05
  It's a beautiful show.
• 15:06
  It's one of my favorite shows, but it definitely doesn't shy away from those bad things.
• 15:11
  And I think you're right that we can't stop talking about the bad parts that got us here because girl, let's be honest, there are two parts in our lives that we probably would
• 15:21
  rather forget, but like they made us who we are.
• 15:23
  You know what mean?
• 15:24
  Exactly.
• 15:25
  Like, none of us would be where we are without learning from the past.
• 15:31
  I mean, it's in its sense, it's almost the most American thing is that you're going to mess up a bajillion times in a bajillion different ways.
• 15:42
  And at the end of the day, you're going to get better from it, I guess.
• 15:47
  I don't know.
• 15:49
  And so that does draw me into the show, because I think what you just described there is pretty much exactly what Richard Thomas brought to Mark Twain tonight is that we were
• 16:00
  hearing stories about America that weren't always pleasant, but they were always like the, but we grew from it.
• 16:09
  like there was, there was a lot of these connections of like, he would tell personal stories.
• 16:13
  He would tell stories about America.
• 16:14
  He would tell stories about things happening in South of Southern America, you know, and he
• 16:20
  hold it through the lens of like the people need to grow and not be so stagnant, ah which I thought was kind of beautiful.
• 16:27
  I thought there was a lot of beauty in this because there was things like he talked about, like some of his thoughts were very like early feminism.
• 16:34
  You know, there was things that he was talking about, like women should have freedoms and like, you know, uh people of color should have freedoms.
• 16:41
  And like we were very held into that.
• 16:44
  What was once we started the show, once we got into it,
• 16:47
  How did you feel about some of those things?
• 16:49
  Like some of those stories, how did they like come over you?
• 16:54
  um There were a couple that maybe slightly uncomfortable, but again that was it was more of a time frame type thing than it was the content itself.
• 17:03
  um But then there were some parts that were like honestly kind of inspiring.
• 17:10
  Yeah, I would agree.
• 17:12
  I really liked some of the stories that he talked about, like specifically with like his grandfather.
• 17:18
  And they were just like that they were heavy and they weren't always easy to hear.
• 17:23
  But I liked that we had this moment that we could kind of sit back and use humor to reflect on those things and why they're not great and why he himself could be like, yeah,
• 17:34
  these aren't great.
• 17:37
  And then also at the same time,
• 17:38
  tell you how we could improve and how we could do better, which I think is so reflective of the time we're living in now.
• 17:44
  I think that's such a big takeaway from the show is that like the things that he was going through in the 1800s is not that different from 2025.
• 17:52
  No, not at all.
• 17:54
  Like truly, we are going through some of these paradigm shifts where minorities are struggling to have a voice.
• 18:05
  And then here's this man, Mark Twain, know, up on stage being like the, that was rough.
• 18:11
  And like, we should not do that again.
• 18:14
  Yeah.
• 18:15
  Um, so while obviously I don't know who Mark Twain is, I mean, like, I don't know him personally.
• 18:19
  I've never seen videos.
• 18:20
  I've seen some pictures, but Rob, Rob, not Rob Thomas.
• 18:24
  That is the wrong Thomas.
• 18:27
  Richard Thomas was on stage, embodying a real man, channeling a real man through some of his actual words.
• 18:38
  What did you think of the Mark Twain that was on stage?
• 18:43
  or like Richard Thomas's impression of who Mark Twain was, because it was very distinct.
• 18:51
  It was, it was very, I'm trying to think of like, how to word this, I mean, it was powerful in a sense.
• 19:00
  He really commanded the stage with his, like, and there were parts, like, he knew when the right time to get loud was and when the right time to kind of sit back was.
• 19:12
  And I thought that was really interesting.
• 19:15
  I think he kind of, you know,
• 19:19
  for you and I because again we're never going to meet Mark Twain, we're not going to really know all we have is written words.
• 19:26
  He gave a voice to those written words and I think his interpretation was beautiful to watch.
• 19:34
  It was so interesting because he had, and again, I know this has to come from somewhere.
• 19:38
  So be it whether it was Hal Holbrook that kind of took that on and developed this character or had studied Mark Twain in some way.
• 19:45
  like Richard Thomas had a specific way that he brought him to life.
• 19:48
  He had that little cackle that he did that was just like so distinct, almost sounded like a smoker's cough.
• 19:54
  um But he also like licked his lips a lot and he did these things that were just so like those.
• 20:01
  had to be there had to be reasons to give Mark Twain those if it wasn't because those were real things that Mark Twain did that's interesting and so I thought it was really cool
• 20:09
  that like the amount of studying he had to do to probably embody this man it had to be a lot of work
• 20:18
  I'm sure, I mean I don't know much about his acting style but I would imagine he had to method that for a while to like really get it down because it's not something like, it's
• 20:27
  not a normal script where you're reading this and it's oh my character's gonna walk across the stage and take a sip of this drink or like you know it's not like staged like that
• 20:37
  where it's like these are just mannerisms of oh I finished this sentence and so now I'm gonna lick my lips or like you know like different things like that where it's like you
• 20:46
  have to come up with those kind of almost in them.
• 20:48
  moment because you're not going to do it the same every time.
• 20:52
  I mean, he even talked about when I interviewed him that like the show is not the same every time because every time he pulls a different writing or reading, you know, he pulls
• 21:00
  a different story and he's trying to find his own way around that.
• 21:04
  And if you think about it.
• 21:06
  So going through some of his action credits right now, when I said I was going to interview him, my mom was like, you're interviewing John Boy Walton from the Waltons.
• 21:13
  No idea who that was.
• 21:14
  I have never seen that show before.
• 21:16
  But I mean, he's also he played Bill in the
• 21:21
  TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's It.
• 21:23
  Like this, he played Atticus Finch in the touring production of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I saw in that he truly was Atticus in that story.
• 21:34
  So I think you're right that he truly, he is more method than a lot of actors that maybe we have right now, you know?
• 21:40
  There's a part of him that is trying to find who this person is.
• 21:45
  And the fact that he was hand selected by Hale Holbrook's estate to
• 21:50
  bring this character back to life, to bring this revival back to people, really shows that they knew that he was the right type of actor to find Mark Twain once again.
• 22:01
  Yeah.
• 22:02
  So I would say that this was probably one of my favorite shows that I've seen recently, specifically because I Richard Thomas did such a fantastic job of finding Mark Twain.
• 22:14
  But like, of recent shows that you've seen, where would the show fall?
• 22:18
  It's no Kimberly Akimbo
• 22:19
  somewhere, I think it'd go kind of somewhere in the middle for me.
• 22:23
  I think it wasn't something that I truly was like, oh my God, I love this and I would go see this like 20 more times, but it wasn't like I would never see it again.
• 22:35
  You know what I mean?
• 22:35
  Like I, there were parts of it that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I am, I'm a little more of a musical girl myself.
• 22:42
  I am.
• 22:43
  I do like a good play, but.
• 22:46
  but it's gotta be a play that's something that's going to pull you in and make you want to do it.
• 22:52
  got to be like captivated because with my ADHD it can get kind of hard.
• 22:58
  Like I'll all of a sudden be focusing on this one specific actor over in this corner and completely missing what's happening over here.
• 23:08
  100%.
• 23:09
  that's, that's totally fair.
• 23:11
  I would say that I would go see this again.
• 23:14
  I think that this is a show that I could take away more from it each time I saw it, but I don't think it's one that I would like actively seek if that makes sense.
• 23:26
  Like I would not tour around the show to see it.
• 23:29
  Like I would not be that kind of person, but I think it's a show that like a lot of people could gain a lot of, uh,
• 23:35
  introspection about their life in the world that we're living in right now and how we can do better for all populations.
• 23:42
  And I think it's worth seeing Richard Thomas in the role because my God, he is really good in the role.
• 23:50
  Yeah.
• 23:52
  But it's probably not one that I would see all the time.
• 23:56
  think when it comes to shows, which happens with lot of musicals, music makes it easy to swallow some of those things.
• 24:03
  And while Mark Twain tonight has a very humorous, like hearing humorous side to it, which makes sense because he was a humorist sometimes plays are a little harder to swallow when
• 24:12
  it's so dark.
• 24:12
  You're like, it's so heavy.
• 24:15
  I could be wrong about that, but that's at least how I feel.
• 24:17
  mean, there have been plays that we've seen at local theater shows where they have heavier topics and I leave it and I'm just like, wow, that was an intense couple hours.
• 24:30
  That's like a huge weight on my shoulders now.
• 24:32
  Yeah, like it's beautiful and it's so well done, but now I'm gonna go home and sit there and stare at my ceiling for like 30 minutes.
• 24:40
  Really process this.
• 24:42
  And when you think of a show like Kimberly Akimbo which is one of the more recent ones we saw together, like it is a heavy topic, but the music makes it go down a lot easier.
• 24:51
  even though you're thinking about it at the end, you're not like, wow, life is, there's nothing great in life anymore.
• 25:00
  ah Well then, thank you again for going with me.
• 25:03
  Thank you for seeing the show.
• 25:04
  think that Mark Twain, everybody should go and see it.
• 25:07
  I'm really glad I got to see it with you.
• 25:08
  Ryann it's always a pleasure having you here with me.
• 25:11
  It's always a pleasure to join.
• 25:14
  And so that concludes our Mark Twain Tonight podcast.
• 25:17
  Look forward for more episodes coming soon.
• 25:19
  And thank you again for joining us here in our box seats.
• 25:21
  Till next curtain call.