here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cOh, he’d love it,\u201d says Thomas of John-Boy, who\u00a0dreamed of being a writer like Twain. \u201cI think he’d be very inspired, and he would take Twain’s example as a cue to go as far as he could and express himself as honestly and fully as possible because that’s what Twain does to his writing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s such a rich personality that when you’re playing him, it’s not like you’re just saying his words. His words are so infused with his own qualities as a person, you really feel like the words carry the character with him. Yeah, [John-Boy] would probably have been deeply inspired.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shows on Tuesday \u2014 a matinee performance for school children is on the schedule \u2014 mark a return to Fort Worth for Thomas, who starred as Atticus Finch in the national tour of Aaron Sorkin\u2019s adaptation of \u201cTo Kill a Mockingbird,\u201d which came to town in 2023.<\/p>\n
Mark Twain \u2014 born Samuel Clemens \u2014 remains one of America\u2019s great satirists, using humor as a moral weapon to expose hypocrisy in religion, politics, imperialism, racism, polite society, and wherever else it tried to hide.<\/p>\n
Twain missed his moment for the current political climate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know, we kind of know what Twain would think of today,\u201d says Thomas, 74.<\/p>\n
Ron Chernow\u2019s new biography, Mark Twain, illuminates the origins of Twain\u2019s enduring suspicion of institutions, mob mentality, and entrenched orthodoxy and conventional wisdom.<\/p>\n
The Chernow book, Thomas says, was the third biography he\u2019s read on Twain since immersing himself in the subject upon learning he had gotten the part.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not a deep scholar of Twain at all, but I read obviously what was assigned in school and other things,\u201d Thomas says. \u201cBut I knew him mostly as the way most people do, as a just a great aphorist, all these great savings, all of his wonderfully satirical one-liners. But it’s very different to appreciate an author and know a bit about an author, and then just sort of do a deep dive.<\/p>\n
\u201cActors love to research. Now I can’t get enough of him. I can’t stop reading about him or his own work, so that’s really been very gratifying and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to life as an author, Twain was a prolific performer, taking his lecture circuit across the world. It\u2019s in the spirit of what you\u2019ll see on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though he would maybe pretend to be giving a lecture on the Hawaiian Islands, it would really be a wonderful opportunity to have fun,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cHe was great at it, and he became internationally famous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holbrook\u2019s \u201cMark Twain Tonight!\u201d premiered on Broadway in 1966, earning him a Tony Award for best performance by an actor in a play. Holbrook\u2019s Twain was brought to a national audience in a CBS television adaptation that earned the actor an Emmy Award nomination. Holbrook died in 2021.<\/p>\n
Thomas says he jumped at the chance to take up Holbrook\u2019s Twain mantle. He was on tour with “To Kill a Mockingbird” when opportunity knocked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe minute he said, \u2018Hal Holbrook’ I thought, \u2018OK, I hope this is what I think it is,\u2019 which is insane because nobody has ever done it other than Hal. Obviously, it was his life’s work and it’s completely associated with him, and how dare this other actor come in and take over the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the thing is, he created such a wonderful piece of performance work, and it’s such a terrific way to get to know Twain that it’s something that should be done. I mean, after I’m done with it, I would hope that other actors would do it. Somebody’s got to be the first to pick up the flag and go. I’m happy it’s me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A delicious convergence of personalities is forthcoming. John-Boy Walton meets Mark Twain in Fort Worth Richard Thomas, who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":536627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,12043,18602,7371,7372,13814,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-536626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-america","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-bass-hall","tag-fort-worth","tag-fortworth","tag-john-henry","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115943532414349869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}