Tuacahn Amphitheater\u00a0<\/a>in the red-rock country of southern Utah,\u00a0near St. George, where we\u2019ll probably miss it, too.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I confess that the story of Peter Pan hasn\u2019t ever been a particular\u00a0favorite of mine\u00a0and that I wasn\u2019t overly thrilled about going to the musical last night, but the actors at the Hale Center Theater did a wonderful job and I was very happy afterwards that I had been there. \u00a0(We enjoyed a Thai dinner with friends before the play, too, and that was very nice.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyway, I found myself thinking about the pleasures of live theater, and about Brigham Young\u2019s famous statement, above.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the first community theaters in America was established in the 1840s under the direction of Joseph Smith, in the Mormon settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois. \u00a0And theatrical activity\u00a0there continued even after his murder by a mob in 1844. \u00a0In fact, it didn\u2019t stop\u00a0until 1846, when mobs besieged the city\u00a0altogether\u00a0and the Latter-day Saints were driven into the western wilderness.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soon after their arrival\u00a0in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, though, they erected a temporary shelter made of\u00a0tree boughs \u2014 they called it a \u201cbowery\u201d \u2014 on the southeast corner of what is now\u00a0Temple Square. And, in the years that followed, three successively larger boweries replaced the first, and concerts, plays, and dances were performed in these simple structures.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Social Hall was dedicated in 1853, not much\u00a0more than five years after the arrival of the pioneers in the valley, and it was used for theatrical performances.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1862, the Salt Lake Theatre, which ranked among\u00a0the finest American theater buildings of its time, was dedicated. \u00a0During its\u00a0dedicatory service, Brigham Young remarked that, \u201cOn the stage of a theatre can be represented in character evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards, the weaknesses and follies of man and the magnanimity of the virtuous life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m guessing that Brother Brigham\u2019s taste ran a bit more to the \u201cdidactic\u201d than mine does. \u00a0In any event, I\u2019m confident that, today, he would be singing the praises of film and even of television, for their\u00a0power to educate and to edify. \u00a0But I\u2019m equally sure that he would be disappointed, if not disgusted, at the uses to which film, the stage, and the broadcast media are often actually put. \u00a0They\u2019re commonly\u00a0the equivalent of cotton candy for the mind and spirit \u2014 when they\u2019re not something much worse.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s said that Philo Farnsworth (1906-1971), the Latter-day Saint inventor who essentially created television, dreamed of its ability to bring Shakespeare and symphony orchestras into the homes of ordinary people, even if they lived in remote rural areas. \u00a0But things haven\u2019t always turned out so well. \u00a0And he knew it. \u00a0His son Kent recalled being told by his father that\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s nothing on it worthwhile, and we\u2019re not going to watch it in this household, and I don\u2019t want it in your intellectual diet.\u201d \u00a0Only when he watched NASA\u2019s moon landing on television did Brother Farnsworth think that his invention had perhaps begun to justify his efforts on it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cIf I were placed on a cannibal island and given a task of civilizing its people, I should straightway build a theatre.\u201d Brigham Young \u00a0 My wife and I attended a performance, last night, of the musical Peter Pan. \u00a0We saw it at the Hale Center Theater in Orem. \u00a0Curiously, it\u2019s also playing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>