Twain and Prine Share Hair-Raising Likeness

Maybe Shirley MacLaine really has something in all that hip mumbo jumbo about past lives and reincarnation.

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that an ex-co-worker of mine who had the most incredible string of bad luck imaginable must have earned all that bad karma in a previous existence either as Genghis Khan or as a member of the Nixon Cabinet.

And every week at the supermarket we can glimpse headlines telling us what new mischief Elvis is getting into from beyond the grave.

A further clue to the truth of all this came last weekend with back-to-back performances by Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain at the Orange County Performing Arts Center and by John Prine at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. It’s entirely possible that America’s favorite humorist and novelist has been reborn as a low-profile singer-songwriter from Chicago.

Look close--they both have the same droopy mustache. (If there’s one thing that can transcend corporeal reality as well as constraints of time and space as we know them, it’s facial hair.)

OK, so it’s a nebulous theory. There was, nevertheless, a common spirit in these solo performances that showcased the works of two distinctly American writers. These tandem shows were reminders of how rare, but how rewarding, entertainment is that fully exploits the beauty, the humor and the power of the English language. Technological gimmickry and flashy stage effects pale next to a brilliant wordsmith.

No wonder Holbrook has been able to take what started as a college honors project in 1954 and parlay it into a lifelong career. Twain’s written legacy seems bottomless; certainly, his observations of America and of man himself are timeless.

On the invincibility of truth:

“The history of the whole human race, as well as each individual’s experience, is shown thick with evidence that the truth is not hard to kill . . . but that a lie, told well, is immortal!”

On patriotism:

“True patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time; and loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

With a mere handful of words, Twain could conjure up vivid pictures of people he knew, whether it was a schoolteacher . . . :

“Miss Hart, was a stern old New England warrior with eyes that turned like a pivot gun.”

. . . or his own mother:

“She was a generous, kind-hearted person who loved cats. She had a battalion of ‘em. She would drown the young kittens when necessary. But she always warmed the water first.”

John Prine also writes about relatives, teachers, patriotism and truth in his own perceptive way.

Prine’s amazing gift, like Twain’s, is the ability to draw the universal out of colorfully specific incidents and individuals.

In “Spanish Pipedream,” Prine turns the language on its head in a way that would have done Twain proud:

Well I sat there at the table

And I acted real naive

For I knew that topless lady

Had somethin’ up her sleeve .

In “Linda Goes To Mars,” Prine paints a poignant portrait of a marriage that’s in cold storage:

I just found out yesterday that Linda goes to Mars

Every time I sit and look at pictures of used cars

She’ll turn on her radio and sit down in her chair

And look at me across the room, as if I wasn’t there.

Holbrook closed his lengthy show with a comment that Twain made near the end of his 75 years:

“I’m the only man living who understands human nature. God put me in charge of this branch office. After I’m gone, there’ll be no one to take my place.”

Was he wrong? Are Mark Twain and John Prine one and the same? Who knows? Shirley MacLaine? No matter. Though the body may die and truth may be easy to kill, some things endure. Like talent. And mustaches.