Whoopi Goldberg, Gilda Radner, John Leguizamo and many more: They all owe a solo debt to Hal Holbrook

CHICAGO — What was the greatest solo show you ever saw, or maybe wish you had seen?

Lots of distinguished actors have embraced the form. Back in the 1970s, there was Julie Harris in William Luce’s “The Belle of Amherst,” a Broadway show about the writer Emily Dickinson. In 1977, the great Lily Tomlin performed “Appearing Nightly,” a show featuring her famously harried telephone operator, Ernestine.

I’d love to have seen “Gilda Radner — Live From New York” in 1979. Based on the clips you can find on YouTube, the incomparable Second City alumna, who was at her peak in 1979 and yet was dead from ovarian cancer within a decade, this was one of the funniest Broadway shows ever, replete with the infamous comedic ditty, “Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals.” And let’s not forget Whoopi Goldberg, who created an eponymous solo show on Broadway in the 1980s, nor Anna Deavere Smith, the creator of such powerfully political pieces as “Fires in the Mirror” and “Twilight: Los Angeles.”

Or the late Spalding Gray, a constant visitor to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in the 2000s; John Leguizamo, an incredibly detailed comic actor with a brilliant knack for characterization; or Mike Daisey, whose show ”The Trump Card” at the Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago in 2016 was as prescient a piece as I ever have seen.

All these artists, though, owe a debt to Hal Holbrook, who died Jan. 23 at the age of 95.

Holbrook did many great things on screen as an actor, including his sly appearance in “All the President’s Men,” to name but one, but he will be most remembered for his cigar-chomping appearance as Mark Twain in his solo stage show, “Mark Twain Tonight.”

He practically invented the form. And he kept it going until 2017, when he finally declared a self-imposed retirement.

I caught Holbrook’s show in 1997 at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora. That was more than 23 years ago, yet Holbrook already was in his 43rd year of its performance. Even then, he had already added a moving coda wherein the actor and his subject seemed to become one, both speaking of their impending final exit from the stage. Twain/Holbrook thanked the audience for its years of affection. And then, “it’s time to go,” they said, twinkle-eyed as their souls appeared to meld. “My teeth are loose.”

Holbrook’s truly amazing show owed its fame to the total immersion of an actor inside a character; its aim was to persuade the audience to believe they really were in the presence of Twain, that the actor somehow was channeling the great raconteur’s persona and spirit. And therein, of course, it was very different from the work of, say, Gray, whose outsized personality was always at the core of his performances.

In the case of Smith, we watched a remarkable writer-actor immerse herself in numerous characters, usually with wildly different points of view. In an Anna Deavere Smith show, you typically met at least a dozen figures forged with similar detail to how Holbrook conjured up Twain.

But Holbrook was the brand name of the classic one-man show and, frankly, the quality of his work from the middle of the 20th century onward was crucial to the subsequent success of the form.

Before Holbrook came along, producers had been reluctant to book solo artists on the theory that it would be hard to hold the attention of a crowd and audiences would perceive the event as not worth their money. For decades, audiences had gone to the theater to see beloved actors perform their signature characters: Chicago’s own Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle was perhaps the best example of that. But Jefferson, who got trapped in that role for much of his career, had a whole show surrounding him, usually with scores of supporting actors.

Not so Holbrook, who needed only a wig, a stool and a cigar. He pretty much put to bed the widespread skepticism as to whether one person could hold the stage for an entire night without breaking into song. He offered up the confidence-building proof.

Many of those who followed Holbrook have openly acknowledged their debt. The group includes Frank Ferrante, a Holbrook devotee famous for his evening with Groucho Marx; Chicago’s Ronald Keaton, who brilliantly took on the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and who told me this week how much Holbrook had meant to him; Max McLean who essayed C.S. Lewis in Chicago and elsewhere to big, enthusiastic audiences, and far too many others to list here.

The solo show is alive and well.

On Feb. 8, Chicago’s Lifeline Theatre opens its 24th annual “Fillet of Solo” festival. It’s a virtual event this year, of course, but then solo work is a good match for the moment. The long-standing and justly beloved festival, which also includes storytelling collectives, includes a wide variety of locally based solo performers on its bill, from Rose Abdoo to Jimmy Carrane and Kurt Naebig to Bernard White.

As they work alone in front of an audience, these performers are all, at least to some degree, Holbrook’s creative children.

“Fillet of Solo” runs Feb. 8-28; tickets $20 (single show; suggested donation) to $45 (festival pass) at lifelinetheatre.com.