Light in the Public Square

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We’re just back from enjoying a meal with a friend at the Market Street Grill in South Jordan and then going with her to see a very well-acted and well-sung performance nearby in Sandy at the Hale Centre Theatre of The Light in the Piazza.  I’ve said it before, but the Hale theaters are a Utah treasure.  And so, for that matter, are the Market Street restaurants.

We’ve seen a fair amount of live theater in the past couple of weeks.  For instance, we saw a recent performance of Pride and Prejudice at Brigham Young University.  I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t find it fully satisfying — more the fault of the script, I think, than of the director or the actors — so that led us into yet another binge of watching Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen in the very good 2005  movie version of Pride and Prejudice and — still our favorite — Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC mini-series adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel.  We also watched a superb performance of Steve Martin’s Bright Star at the Hale Center Theater in Orem.  And, with a group of our neighbors, we attended a very well done production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The School of Rock up at the Hale Centre Theatre in South Jordan.  I had never seen it before, and I think that I won’t be watching it again.  But the actors did a fine job with what they had.

So, in a sense, live theater has been on my mind of late.  (It could scarcely be otherwise, since I married a theater major.)  Which leads me, rather indirectly, into the subject of this particular blog entry.   First, though, I offer a brief historical introduction:

The Book of Mormon musical has been around for years now.  It has done very well, not only nationally and even internationally.  And, of course, the usual suspects (among others) have praised it extravagantly and, in some cases at least, have ridiculed those who were, umm, less enthused about it.

In a few cases, by the way, I’m confident that they’ve been the same people who, misunderstanding the values of prudence and thrift that influence LDS leaders and perhaps knowing very little about finance, have harshly criticized the Church’s building of the City Creek mall — and, for that matter, the building of temples — as a waste of money that could have gone to the poor instead.  Some years back, when The Book of Mormon came to Salt Lake City for the first time, I couldn’t help but notice that, although those voices never seemed to complain about it, local tickets to the play were going at the box office for between roughly $150 and $500 each.  (And that was years ago.). Such sums could have done a lot of good for, say, Ugandans living in poverty — to choose just one group at random.  Many reactions to The Book of Mormon seem to me very much a matter of well-fed and comfortable elites sneering at the rubes and rednecks and superstitious buffoons who won’t darken the door of the theater.  But what surprises me is that many see it as a mockery of Latter-day Saints (as well-meaning, amusing, and stupid) whereas it is at least as much lampoon of Black Africans.

But I’ll leave that topic for now.

A lot has also been said, much of it rather positive, about the official and unofficial Latter-day Saint reaction to the musical.  That reaction has been measured and temperate, even good humored.  We haven’t blown anything up or killed anybody, nor even called for a boycott or waved placards in angry demonstrations.  Instead, the Church has taken out ads in the playbills and on buses, seeking to use the notoriety of the Book of Mormon musical to further our obligation of taking the Gospel to the world.

Very wise.  And, in that light, perhaps I can be pardoned for dusting off a column that I published in the Deseret News way back in late January 2011.  Two plays were in the works at that time that would focus on the Restored Church.  Of these two, the first appears to have vanished without a trace.  (I could have predicted that, from the description that I had read of it.)  The second, however, has gone on to become a smash international hit.

In all modesty, I think my 2011 counsel was pretty sound:

https://www.deseret.com/2011/1/20/20368517/anti-mormon-mockery-can-actually-lead-to-teaching-moments

Why do I bring it up again?  Because a new mini-series entitled Under the Banner of Heaven is about to appear.  There will be very much about it that faithful Latter-day Saints will dislike, and parts of it that will offend us deeply.  There is likely to be considerable distortion in it of our beliefs and our must fundamental commitments.  But there’s nothing that we can do about it.

So my suggestion, once again, is that we use the occasion.  Perhaps, of course, the miniseries will be a complete flop.  That would be wonderful, in most ways.  If it isn’t, though, it’s very likely that it will generate conversations about how weird Mormons are, and how potentially dangerous we are, and the like.  We should join in those conversations — around the water cooler, if they happen there, and/or with neighbors and/or online.

I don’t know that I’m grateful for anti-Mormon propaganda or for public distortions of our history and our doctrine, but in some cases I suspect that it may actually be more helpful for us to be thought mysterious, weird, and dangerous than to be dismissed as dully conventional, bourgeois, and uninteresting.  In the former case, some might be intrigued and want to learn more.  In the latter case, people will begin to drowse off at the mere mention of us.  It doesn’t hurt if people see the Restoration as radical, because it is radical.  It might be more hurtful if others see us as having nothing to offer beyond tithing, a ban on booze and coffee, sexual self-discipline, and an extra book of scripture.  Let them be curious!  But then, we need to be ready to satisfy that curiosity.

I would like to see us really active online when this new miniseries premieres.  Here is a place where you can find some useful material regarding Under the Banner of Heaven that will begin to equip you to participate in such conversations as may arise:

““Under the Banner of Heaven” Redux”

Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be ashamed.  Be bold.