The Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) seminars in Human Communication attended Hal Holbrook's performance "Mark Twain Tonight!" Tuesday, 28 September 2004.
Holbrook has been doing this show many years. Here is a link to a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) site with Bill Moyers on Hal Holbrook and the show.
Still in costume (expensive white linen suit, silk cravat, black shoes-- which Holbrook's research revealed was Sam Clemens' authentic practice, not white shoes), Mr. Holbrook graciously met a group of people from the university and the community after the performance, for a few minutes of fellowship and conversation.
Some of the CICS master's candidates were selected by their teams to meet the actor as part of this group. We had all read Mark Twain's "How to Tell a Story" as part of our preparation. (See my weblog entry of 24 September 2004, which links to the essay.)
We asked Holbrook about the emphasis on "pause," which is a vital element in the Mark Twain technique the author discusses in the famous essay. Hal Holbrook said the key to acting in general and this show in particular is to build suspense.
Building suspense is a difficult challenge when it's a one-man show, a talking show, mainly, with intertwined conversation, jokes, stories.
So for suspense, small and large, Holbrook uses pacing, gestures, picking up and putting down books and papers, the water pitcher (will he pour a glass of water? if he does, he puts it down. Will he drink from it?), the lighting of a cigar (Mark Twain didn't smoke on the platform in his day, Holbrook reported), the dropping or not of cigar ash, and so on.
In all this, Holbrook pauses often--in the middle of a gesture, in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a story. Then he delivers the goods. He has built suspense, almost out of nothing, consciously, carefully. A master at work. And the actor disappearing into the character of another great American master at work.
We can use these techniques in our own human communication, especially in professional presentations and narration. We can start to master these with the art of the pause . . . telling our stories.
Oxford University Press has the deepest list of scholarly books. And though it is the venerable Oxford University's press, OUP as it's called is a major player in New York City, the center of the world's publishing industry. I think its New York operation is bigger than its Oxford, U.K. operation, for good reasons.
Here is the link to the current sale. Enjoy. http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/24230/fall/?view=usa
For the topic, "Narrate or Describe?"
Here's a text we're using for the course in Human Communication, Mark Twain's "How to Tell a Story," published 1897.
(Note there's a spelling error in University of Virginia's subtitle for the piece: "It's" for "Its"--a common error for all of us. We should petition the United Nations or the University of Chicago Press to authorize these two words to be spelled the same, then rely on context for the differentiated meanings.)
Back in the USA midwest from China.
Coincidentally, I find an appropriate item in the local Sunday paper here. An economist colleague at Ball State University, Patrick Barkey, has the following column on the importance of China trade for us in Indiana. His insights will fit any community or business now worldwide.
http://www.thestarpress.com/articles/7/026371-5707-008.html
Ni Hao! (How are you!) Greetings from Beijing China.
I am here for a trip of business and tourism to attend the Pacific Telecommunications Council 2004 Mid-Year seminar. It was held in the industrial coastal city of Tianjin. It is China's third largest city, after Shanghai and Beijing. Tianjin has 12 million people, Beijing 15 million (and 12 million bicycles).
The news is that China is on the rise, especially in telecommunications. China has the largest number of cellular phone subscribers in the world; the USA is second. China has the second largest number of wired phone subscribers. The USA is first, for now.
China faces many problems from rapid growth--pollution, inflation, population pressures on infrastructure. Yet one by one the people in China are tackling problems, and we can expect progress.
I am impressed by what I see. China's telecomm and information industries will be players in our field for a long time to come. This is a great time to go global, for all of us.