.

Theric: Let’s start with the history of WWJD? Where did it come from? How did you find it? How did the New Play Project production do?

Davey: WWJD was written by Anna Lewis as her BYU Creative Writing Master’s Thesis. The idea started as a poem (which will be published later this year in Dialogue), and developed into a play through the BYU Writers-Dramaturgs-Actors workshop, led by Eric Samuelsen and Wade Hollingshaus. My wife, Bianca, was a dramaturg and actress in the workshop at the time, and got to see the script as it developed, offer feedback, and participate in the staged reading when it was finished. She loved the play, and had been wanting to produce it ever since; so, when we started planning New Play Project’s first season with Bianca as Artistic Director, WWJD was one of the first titles that came up. I finally read the script and completely adored it. We decided to do it.

The show ran the last weekend in March and one of the first weekends of April at the Provo Theatre (we skipped a weekend for General Conference–who in Provo wants to see a play about Jesus during General Conference?). Tony Gunn did a wonderful job directing, we had a fantastic cast, and audiences loved it. We were (I think understandably) a little nervous about doing a show in Provo where Jesus skateboards, goes miniature golfing, and plays Halo, and it was tricky to market–the script might seem a bit edgy for the Deseret Book crowd, but it’s also pretty G-rated and really quite reverent. As is usually the case with New Play Project, our most effective advertising was done through word-of-mouth–our first weekend, we had audiences of twenty or thirty people, but by closing night we were playing to a sold-out crowd, including a few people who had come back for a second time and brought friends. Almost everyone who talked to us after the show told us they loved it. One guy told Bianca as he was buying tickets, “I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, I had to come see it again.” It was really an incredibly rewarding experience–the sort of thing you really look forward to in theater and in the arts generally. We had a good time putting it together, and it was a project I think we were all excited to share with our audiences. And we were even able to pay rent on the theater.

Theric: So I hear there’s a new production of WWJD happening in Salt Lake? Tell us about that.

Davey: Actually, I don’t think there is. We’re having a round of auditions for the film in Salt Lake, so that might be where you got that idea–maybe we should look at that and make sure it’s more clear. (Unless there is a new production in SLC, and I just don’t know about it, which would be awesome!)

Theric: In that case, let’s move right into the real point of this interview. Filming WWJD. Whose idea was this?

Davey: Last summer I was starting to really get into low-budget and DIY filmmaking–reading a lot of blogs, watching no-budget movies, and seeing how beautiful and professional a movie can look for just a few thousand dollars. With DSLRs and other recent developments in prosumer HD and with online distribution I think we’re seeing a shift in the economics of filmmaking that’s unlike anything in film history–it’s a bit like the paradigm shifts of Italian neorealism or the French New Wave, but on a much broader scale. So right around the time I was thinking about directing a feature in the not-too-distant future, I read WWJD. The more I read the script, the more I loved it–and the more I started to see it as a film. I thought it was a shame that our stage production would probably only be seen by a few hundred people at the most, and I started getting really excited about the idea of shooting it. I e-mailed Anna Lewis, and she was thrilled about the idea. I got started adapting it and started talking to some potential crew members, and things grew from there.

Theric: I can get why the script inspired you. I somehow came across it online (all BYU masters theses being online these days) and started reading it and couldn’t stop even though I had more important things to do. I look forward to seeing the poem and, I hope, seeing the film. But even a cheap film is expensive. Even with (relatively) inexpensive cameras and options for digital distribution, you still require hours and hours of people’s lives to make it happen. What kind of range (both in terms of hours and dollars) do you anticipate this project taking?

Davey: We’ll be shooting the first two weeks of August, with typical 12-hour shooting days. Our projected budget is around $10,000, about half of which we hope to raise through Kickstarter. Almost all of our cast and crew will be working for free, with the possibility of deferred pay if the film makes a profit or if we’re able to raise additional funds. I think we’ve been able to assemble such a strong crew primarily by virtue of the script–people are excited about the project, and it’s attracted a very talented group (and hopefully will continue to do so, with auditions for most major roles taking place this Saturday and next). We’re making the movie for (compared to most movies) virtually nothing, but we’ll be using the same kind of camera that was used to shoot movies like Monte Hellman’s Road to Nowhere, Lena Dunham’s SXSW-winning Tiny Furniture, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Rubber, some of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, and House’s sixth season finale. For an example of micro-budget filmmaking, check out this featurette on Gareth Edwards’ terrific Monsters, which came out last year, was shot for $15,000, and features big scary monsters breaking things on location in Central America. It’s an exciting time to be making independent films, and I hope WWJD will show how Christian and Mormon filmmakers can take advantage of new technology to tell great stories that traditionally probably wouldn’t get funded. After we wrap production in August, we’ll be working on editing the film and sending it out to festivals around the country.

Theric: The reason I’m interviewing you about this project now (as opposed to next month or last week) is because of your Kickstarter campaign. So give us your pitch.

Davey: As mentioned, we’ve got a great crew, and this really is a phenomenal script–incredibly smart, funny, and entertaining. I really think we’re going to be able to put together a great movie. As you mentioned, the play is available to read online for anyone interested, and I think it speaks for itself. As far as Kickstarter goes, for those who don’t know how it works, it’s an all-or-nothing fundraising platform–which means that if we reach our goal of $5,000 in 60 days, we get to keep all the money that’s been pledged. But, if we don’t make the goal, we don’t get anything, and no one will be charged for any donations they’ve pledged–which means, as a donor, you’ve got nothing to lose. Every dollar counts, and we have rewards available at different donation levels–including seeing your name in the end credits of the film (along with your very own IMDb page!), season tickets to New Play Project (if you’re in the area), and copies of the movie itself (on DVD, Blu-Ray, or digital download–so if you want to see the film, donate to our Kickstarter and consider that your pre-order). We’re putting everything we can into the film, but we need everyone’s help in order to get it made. It’s just the sort of intelligent, thoughtful, well-crafted and engaging story that AMV readers (and fans of the “radical middle” everywhere) will love.

Theric: Well, you certainly know how to say what we want to hear. Folks, here’s where you get in on the action.

I have been teaching about Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” in my high school creative writing class and so it has set me back on this track of thinking which has been boring its way into my everyday unconscious for a long time now. For those unaware of what exactly “The Hero’s Journey” is, it chiefly comes from a book Joseph Campbell wrote called The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Written in 1949, it was a very important book that set forth the idea that there are patterns and archetypes found in all sorts of disparate mythology, fairy tales, religious narratives, and folk lore. That all these stories from unconnected and far flung cultures follow one basic story. It is also a trend that can be found in epic literature and film, which is uncannily and unconsciously present in everything from Homer’s The Odyssey to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And many writers now purposely craft their tales to follow this pattern, George Lucas’s Star Wars being one of the most famous examples.

BYU Experimental Theatre Company's production of _Prometheus Unbound_

I also purposely followed this pattern with my play Prometheus Unbound several years ago (and have addressed it less directly in other plays such as Swallow the Sun and my new work Manifest), much because the idea has fascinated me ever since I was taught it in my high school sophmore honors English class. Ms. Drummond mentioned Carl Jung’s revolutionary studies in the early and mid 20th century about archetypes (a simpler overview here) and the collective unconscious. In my terms, archetypes are repeating patterns that happen in mythology and other stories, in psychology, in dreams, and even (at least from what I’ve been able to observe) in many points in recorded, literal history (try applying this pattern to Joan of Arc, for example).

Carl Jung

If  Freud is the psychologist for the atheist, Carl Jung is the psychologist for the spiritual believer. Jung puts a lot of faith in religious or spiritual experiences, which rather than making one disturbed psychologically (as many psychologists would be apt to attribute), rather he believed that they made one more psychologically healthy. “Here we must ask,” Jung wrote in The Undiscovered Self, “Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God , and hence that will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving into the crowd?” To Jung, religious experiences, perhaps even “supernatural” experiences, fulfilled an innate need in the human subconscious and communicated something very important about the nature of man. Campbell draws a lot from these Jungian ideas of archetypes and universal consciousness in his concept of a “Hero’s Journey.” There is something in the human psyche (interesting that “psyche” translates to “soul”) that creates these spiritual patterns in our stories.

C.S. LEWIS AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

I dealt with many of these concepts in the play I wrote about C.S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity, Swallow the Sun. C.S. Lewis struggled with these re-occurring patterns he saw in his passionate reading of early world mythologies that he loved in his early life. Lewis loved Norse mythology, Greek mythology, the old stories which caused this difficult to define “joy” to spring up in him. However, this same pattern in the “dying god” myths who would have a kind of glorious resurrection (such as the Greek Prometheus, the Egyptian Osiris, or the Norse Baldr), he also saw in the story of Christ. This led him to believe that Christianity was no different than these other myths… Christianity may have had many things going for it, but originality was not one of them.

New Play Project's 2008 production of _Swallow the Sun_

This was a major stumbling block for Lewis and one of the causes of his fall from his childhood faith and his subsequent period as an atheist. It would be many years and many spiritual guides before his road led him back to a faith in some sort of deity, but eventually when he conceded to some sort of God, it wasn’t necessarily a Christian one at first. Again, there was that pesky pattern. Why was Christianity so similar to other myths? Was it simply spiritual plagiarism?

Fortunately for all we lovers of C.S. Lewis’s Christian fiction and apologetics, two important friends were attached to Lewis’s life. J.R.R. Tolkien (the yet to be author of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit) and Hugo Dyson (a University professor and an expert on Shakespeare). These two men were major causes of Lewis’s conversion to Christianity when the three friends and future Inklings took a long walk one night and discussed these major issues that were bothering Lewis. Tolkien and Dyson addressed this similarity between these narratives not by talking around them or ignoring them, but plainly accepting them as part of the religion. Christianity was the “true myth” they said. Christianity was the truth that all the other myths were pointing to.

I don’t know whether these three men were familiar with Carl Jung (although it’s not a shot in the dark that they may have, since their later commentary and work indicates that they were familiar with Jung’s associate Freud), but the line of reasoning they took at that point in C.S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity was very Jungian. Like Jung, their reasoning acknowledges that there is a kind of pre-existent memory, a “collected unconsciousness” that we all share in common. Whether it’s hard wired genetically, spiritually, or psychologically, the result is the same. Human beings inherently know the same story… when they create their stories, their myths, their movies, many of these components of that story tumble out unbidden, for it’s a natural impulse, it’s written on our bones, etched in our spirits, embedded in our psychology. And in this case, that story pointed to the reality of the Christ, the Savior Jesus. But it doesn’t stop there. It is also the story of Joseph Smith. And it doesn’t stop there either. It is the story of Buddha, and Jean d’Arc, and Abraham Lincoln. It is the story of so many people and so many places, so universal in its application that it can be called the Human Story.

In the next part of this essay, it is this story that I aim to tell. Or Re-Tell, for it’s been told many times in many places by many people, connected by nothing but a common humanity and a spiritual spark.

Kathryn Little and Amos Omer in New Play Project's Production of _The Fading Flower_. Photo by Naoma Wilkinson.

I have written two LDS History plays, one called Friends of God (about the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom) the other called The Fading Flower (about the conflict surrounding the LDS/ RLDS schism about polygamy, especially as it related to Joseph and Emma Smith’s family). I was criticized by some people for writing the plays (one family member even told me after seeing the play, that he thought I was going to go apostate). Some people thought that the plays brought up too many uncomfortable facts in Church history. They thought that presenting a less than ideal image of Church figures would be damaging to people’s faith. And, truth told, there are some people I know who struggled with both plays.
The irony, of course, is that I wrote the plays to build up faith rather than tear it down… I consider the plays to tell the faith of people who struggled, but were ultimately redeemed by those struggles, either in this life or the next. The plays clearly state God’s reality and love and show the Church’s leaders as inspired, although not perfect. I addressed hard questions, but I also believe I presented answers to those questions, if people were willing to put aside their prejudices and preconceptions. And that, more often than not, proved to be the case.

I had one actor who had gone inactive until he was in Friends of God and then decided to go on a full time mission as a result of being in the play and the Spirit he felt in being part of it. The plays opened up conversations with less active, former member, and non-member friends. I had numerous people come up to me (sometimes in tears) telling me how the play addressed issues they had been struggling with for a long time and that it had answered their prayers. I had people who came with thoughtful, faithful, spiritual experiences and we rejoiced together and were edified together. Both sets of casts, especially, felt spiritual uplift and a sense of mission with each play, even to the point where we had spiritual experiences in feeling presences and angels assisting and participating with us in our work. I won’t go into too much detail there, for its sacred ground for me, but I felt spiritual assistance in bringing those plays to their fulfillment. Again and again, I felt why the Lord had spurred me on in these projects.

However, there was one instance where I doubted myself on this front. The Fading Flower was accepted as part of BYU’s “Writers/Dramatugs/Actors Workshop,” which workshops new plays before producing a staged reading of the piece (I was excited about this since I wasn’t even a BYU student). The play, which deals with some pretty heavy historical realities, especially regarding the practice of polygamy in the 19th century by the LDS Church, hit a couple of the students pretty hard.

One of the students was a wonderful, intelligent, young woman and a feminist who strongly disliked my portrayal of Emma which, fortunately, we fixed to her satisfaction, for I have always been a strong proponent of Emma (I consider myself a kind of feminist myself, by the way). The practice of polygamy in any fashion was something that worked against this young woman’s feminist tendencies, so it was bound to be an uncomfortable topic for her, but she was smart, knowledgeable, and I wasn’t afraid that anything presented was going to take her out for good.

The experience of the other young woman was much harder for me to bear, though. She was a recent Hispanic convert of a couple of years, and had been taught a pretty simplistic version of the Gospel. She had sacrificed a lot, going against her family’s Catholic traditions and moving from Texas to go to BYU and be close to the Church. Her experiences at BYU ruffled her, as she confronted (at least from her perspective) intolerance, judgmentalism, and even some thinly veiled racism. Then there came this play of mine, presenting Joseph Smith as a polygamist (plus other hard facts), all information that she had never encountered before.

Her and I exchanged some long e-mails about the subject, and I did my best to give the context of the issues involved. A good friendship came out of it. However, some time later she later informed me that she had left the Church. She made it sound that it was due to a lot of the other issues she was specifically encountering in the weird culture that is BYU, but I had the feeling that my play certainly hadn’t helped.

I had written the play because of a vivid and prophetic dream I had that spurred me. I felt good throughout the process of writing it and when it was actually performed I, the cast, and many audience members told me the spiritual experiences they had surrounding it. But why then should I even write a play that could inadvertently damage some one’s fledgling faith?

I struggled with that question, but the more I thought and prayed about it, the more convinced I was performing the work the Lord had guided me in. There was a deeper problem at work here… we do not prepare the Saints for the information that is bound to fall in their laps.

It is not my fault that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I did not create that fact. If you believe him, not even Joseph Smith is at fault for that fact. He was doing as the Lord directed. Yet in the Church we often build up this veil of secrecy, of enforced ignorance. Many of us frown on those who would discuss the less than savory elements of the Gospel and its history.

And it doesn’t only extend to Church History. The Book of Mormon, the Old and New Testaments have own fair share of faith challenging stories. I read a talk once where Elder Jeffrey R. Holland commented on how it said something about the Lord that he put Laban’s death by the hand Nephi within the first eight pages of the Book of Mormon. God wasn’t going to coddle us, he wanted us to face the facts and realize that discipleship in His Kingdom had a price. I look at the graphic and often disturbing stories in the Standard Works and realize that religion– real religion that hasn’t been watered down– is often a hard lesson in the rough nature of truth.

My play The Fading Flower is based on my research about the family of Joseph Smith, years after his martyrdom, especially centering on Emma Smith and her youngest son David Hyrum Smith. Joseph’s widow Emma strived to protect her sons and daughter from the principles which had caused her so much pain in her personal life with Joseph… the principle of polygamy and the “Brighamites” who practiced it. I made a lot of this issue of Emma’s protectiveness. Emma did not want to expose her children to the things and people that had caused her so much struggle. Essentially she wanted to protect them from the truth.

This, in the end, is the cause for the grief and downfall of Emma’s family. It’s Emma’s tragic flaw, this unwillingness to confront the full truth. It’s particularly catastrophic to her youngest son David Hyrum Smith, who not only loses his faith when he confronts the truth about his father’s polygamy, but also loses his sanity and spends the rest of his days in an insane asylum. Near the end of the play, I have David’s adopted sister Julia say, “David did not lose his sanity because he was told the truth in the end. David lost his sanity because he was not told the truth from the beginning. If he hadn’t a false world constructed around him, he would have been able to endure the real one.”

I certainly believe that people still need to learn “line upon line, precept upon precept,” and that we should get “milk before meat.” But I’m saying it now, as I’ve said it before, our enemies are not going to be kind to us in this regard. In this age of easy information, they’re going to shove that meat down our throats and hope that we choke on it. And I have seen just that, time and time again. We’re still feeding the full fledged adults milk, and I’m nervous about the day when they meet some one who has information to give them (without the context) and that our friends and neighbors, and sibling and children, our spouses and parents, they’re going to choke and their faith is going to die.

We often really don’t trust the Lord when He said, “The Truth will make you free.” We take that as some kind of statement about general, esoteric truth, not really applying to the nitty gritty of history and theology and science and anthropology. Yet the Lord makes it painfully clear that if we take that evasive, luke warm track, we are deluding ourselves:

I give you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness….And, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen (Doctrine and Covenants 93: 19, 53).

To know “what you worship”… that’s a pretty big deal. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Yet these are not what many people of faith are being led to. They are told to cover up, not to seek too deep into the mysteries… yet Joseph Smith responds to this kind of reasoning with some unequivocal sayings:

The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 137).

That communion with God doesn’t come cheap, and it doesn’t come without some struggle. All the experience I have to base this on are my own, but I know that every experience with the Divine I have had has come like Jacob wrestling with the angel… the Lord tries me, tests me. He forces me into a corner, sometimes making me struggle with conflict, even doubt. But after that tempest, the lights emerge from the darkness and enlightenment comes.

I won’t lie. In writing the about hard questions in Mormon History, I have often had to shed my cherished cultural assumptions like snake sheds his outer skin. Underneath, however, I find scales of armor that have been tempered into a true strength and resilience. I know the history, I know the doctrine, I know the context. I’m no longer afraid.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PROJECT

Whether you live near enough to see New Play Project’s shows, or a similar theatre or arts groups group with vision in your own area, by all means support them (whether through attending their shows, buying their volumes, or volunteering)! Especially in tough economic times like these, keeping an arts organization or company afloat is very tricky. It was the Great Depression that killed the Harlem Renaissance, and the same could easily happen with the budding efforts of a lot Mormon Artists. We all need to tighten our belts, obviously, especially those at the helm of these groups. Creative saving is the name of the game, all while making less look like more. However, in doing so, let’s not forget how valuable these efforts are, even when they’re imperfect. There has been some exciting things happening in the Mormon Arts world the last few years, ranging from Zarahemla Books to New Play Project to the Whitney Awards. I would hate to see any of those derailed because of the recession. Out of the Mount is an especially worthy volume, which I think is a great boon to any Mormon literature lover’s library.

OUT OF ACADEMIA, INTO THE PUBLIC SPHERE

When you study the history of Mormon Drama, since the 1970s a lot of the genre’s previous successes depended on universities such as BYU, UVU, etc. supporting original plays.  This has been a wonderful tradition, one that I hope is kept up. However, if Mormon Drama is ever able  to gain further stature, it needs a strong toe hold in the public sector.  Non-profit groups and private enterprises need to pick up more Mormon plays for it to ever become robust and break out of its insular literati. There have been attempts at this… Saturday’s Warrior was remarkably successful even after its initial run at BYU. Orson Scott Card had a short try at creating a Mormon Theatre company before his speculative fiction really took off. The Nauvoo Theatrical Society made an excellent go at it in the early 2000’s. New Play Project has been a promising example of how this can work, even with the barest of resources. NPP has remarkably lasted for a number of years now and, despite some setbacks, shown a commitment to keep going.

Now what would happen if such a Mormon theater had the resources and backing to make more than a small dent? Such an adequately funded organization or private company could really transform Mormon Drama. As Eric Samuelsen stated in his important article “Whither Mormon Drama? Look First to a Theater,” he states that “a Mormon Shakespeare needs a Mormon Globe.” I can’t full heartily endorse this idea more. It’s one thing to have groups like the raggedy, medieval or Italian troupes that traveled in wagons from city to city living hand to mouth existences. It’s quite another thing to do what Shakespeare did and build a place for his plays to be housed in. New Play Project, or any similar group, needs a permanent residence. NPP has been fortunate to have had a good rental agreement with the Provo Theatre, but especially with the future of that building and its ownership in question, it will become imperative in the coming years for NPP to find a home, a permanent home, if it’s going to last much longer. Also, if it can go from an all volunteer group, to a core of people who actually can make their living through the organization, that is a good sign that they are onto the road to professional art, rather than art as a hobby.

WORKSHOP

One of New Play Project’s primary goals was not only to be a place for new work to be performed, but also to be a place for new plays to be workshopped.  A few of my plays, even those eventually performed by groups other than NPP such as Rings of the Tree, benefited from the expert eyes and sensibilities of those attending NPP’s workshops. These informal readings and talk backs are of infinite use to the writer. It’s one of the primary roles of dramaturgy to help develop new work, and NPP had a strong dramaturgical streak.

But NPP wasn’t only a workshop for the playwright, but for the theatrical artist in general. Many beginning actors, theatrical technicians, directors, and designers were able to first polish their skills through New Play Project. In this way, its corps of volunteers benefited as much from NPP, as NPP benefited from their sacrificed time and enthusiasm.

NPP itself is a workshop in theatrical enterprise. Its members have learned just how difficult it is to produce even short play festivals, as well as how much needs to go into the full length play. Hopefully New Play Project, and if not NPP than another group, will perfect this wonderful formula and  bring Mormon Drama to the next level. My prayers and hopes go with New Play Project and all other like groups.

Photo by Alisia Packard

POWERHOUSE PLAYWRIGHT

Throw in 3/4 a cube of Jane Austen. Add in equal amounts of Joss Whedon. A pinch of Aaron Sorkin. Oh, and don’t forget two cups of Joseph Smith. Stir evenly. Layer that on top of Merchant Ivory films, historical biopics, and BBC period pieces. Maybe, if you’re in the mood, fold in a little romantic comedy, but only the good stuff. Then mix and let stand. After that, throw in a lot of witty banter, contemporary flair, unflinching bravery, impressive style, moving spirituality, and really strong intelligence.  Toss it in the oven until it’s “shiny.” Take it out, let it cool, top it off with some genuine originality, sparkling dialogue, realistic plots, heart rending vulnerability, and achingly honest characters. Then let it cool and (voila!) you have the plays of Melissa Leilani Larson.

Before I ever met the witty and wonderful Melissa Leilani Larson, I was introduced to her through her plays Wake Me When Its Over (now Standing Still Standing) and Angels Unaware (now Martyrs’ Crossing). The work itself created some powerful responses in me and I have very fond memories of attending those shows. Angels Unaware, especially, re-sparked my spiritual love affair with Joan of Arc (Jean d’Arc), which originally started with my first reading of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Both Shaw’s and Larson’s plays have led to independent inquiry and research on my part, which I hope leads to another Joan of Arc play (or two) someday from my end, although they will be very different than either Larson’s or Shaw’s… and definitely Shakespeare’s!… take on the Maid.

From the beginning Larson has engaged my mind, softened my heart, and spurred me into action. She has made me re-think certain worldviews, and review my own, not always pure intentions. She has made me see my fellow human beings more clearly and compassionately, as well as drawing me nearer to the heart of God. I don’t know how I can give higher praise to a writer, but Larson deserves every word of it. And in her most ground-breaking play (earth shattering, more like it!) Little Happy Secrets, all of Larson’s strengths are on display.

LITTLE HAPPY SECRETS, or ONE-OF-THE-BEST-DARN-PLAY-MORMON- PLAYS…EVER.

Little Happy Secrets is even more relevant now than it was when it was performed by New Play Project in March of 2009 (really not all that long ago). In the swirling storm that has come in the wake of Proposition 8 in California, President Packer’s comments during this last LDS General Conference, plus the recent conciliatory gestures made by Elder Marlin Jensen, as well as the Church, Mormons have been increasingly attached to the issue of homosexuality. Places like Facebook and the Bloggernaccle have been absolutely abuzz with activity over the divisive issue. What some thought would be a tempest in a tea-pot, has destroyed that little piece of ceramic and become a legitimate tempest. It’s a sharp issue, cutting off friendships, killing Church memberships, hurting families, and stirring up calls of social warfare. Most Mormons knew it was a big issue, but I don’t think we knew how big.

Amidst these burns and spears, Little Happy Secrets can act as a healing balm. Many plays have addressed the strained relationship between Mormons and homosexuals (and the tortured Mormon homosexual), ranging from the Pulitzer Prize winning classic Angels in America, to Stephen Fale’s Confessions of a Mormon Boy, to Carol Lynn Pearson’s Facing East. Most of these plays are polarizing rather than uniting, and sharpened with political points. However, Larson does something pretty impressive by not being baited by the politics of the issue and instead concentrating on the humanity of it.

First and foremost, Little Happy Secrets is about its characters… especially the character of Claire. The issue of the Claire’s homosexuality is obviously at the heart of the themes explored… but it’s Claire’s homosexuality. It’s Claire’s heartbreaks. It’s Claire’s relationships that form the heart of the show.

It’s interesting how the communities that Claire belongs to… the LGBT community and the Mormon community… don’t have a huge impact in the play, except in how they define Claire’s personal beliefs and experiences. We never see Claire talk to her Bishop or interact with her ward or confide in her visiting teachers. She doesn’t attend any gay pride rallies or support groups. Everything becomes very personal, rather than communal. She has a small group which she interacts with in the play… her best friend (and the love of her life) Brennan; Brennan’s boyfriend Carter; and Claire’s sister Natalie. We have references to her outside world and communities, but it’s an intimate selection of personalities that Claire interacts with. Consequently, that track makes Claire’s voice throughout the play clear as a bell.

And what a voice it is. Claire is a beautifully intimate and defined portrait. And, if you know Mel, have talked to Mel, laughed with Mel, Claire sounds an awfully lot like Mel. Claire even quotes Jane Austen, throws out tasty popular (and local) references, and comments on intelligent television shows (I don’t know how many times I have heard Mel quote or discuss shows like Firefly, Battlestar Gallactica, or West Wing).  And Claire has Mel’s casually sharp wit, as well as her wonderful mix of deep seated spirituality and literary tastes. Out of all Larson’s characters, Claire is her most autobiographical. Which is interesting, since Larson has made it a point to clearly state that she is not a lesbian.

However, Larson has the imagination and capacity for empathy to take Atticus Finch’s advice to heart… she’s walked a mile in her subject’s shoes.  None of her subjects (not even Claire’s unbeknownst rival Carter) becomes the “Other.” And Larson has brought Claire specifically as far from the Other as she could.  Rather, Larson has made Claire her spiritual twin, a kind of alternate reality Mel. I loved recognizing Mel all over this play, feeling like I already had a friend in Claire.  Which made her struggles all the more heart wrenching.

Before my wife Anne and I first went to see Little Happy Secrets I was very enthusiastically endorsing the play to her (I had seen the staged reading). But Anne was very hesitant about how she was going to react to the piece. She wasn’t afraid of the subject matter necessarily, but had suffered a bit of burn out about how polarizing and distressingly ugly addressing the issue can be. To Larson’s credit, Little Happy Secrets calmed all Anne’s concerns and  the play thoroughly engaged her. We both left the theater with full hearts and a lot to talk about.

I don’t ever remember hearing a single complaint about the play. Not during the talk backs, not in reviews of the show, not in discussions with friends.  That is saying something, considering the subject matter. It seemed to resonate with people across the political and religious spectrum. Mormons, non-Mormons, liberals, conservatives, homsoexuals and heterosexuals all seemed to really care about the play.

How is that even possible? Again, I belive it has everything to do with the fact that it was a character driven work, not an “issue” driven work. We are brought into Claire’s most personal, most honest, most vulnerable world. Not even her thoughts are secret from us, as she talks to the audience often and tells us her very frank and uninhibited reactions to the scenarios she finds herself in.

It’s important that Claire is not a partisan sort of person (it’s interesting that although Brennan is a strong Democrat, and Carter seems to lean Republican, yet Claire never defines herself politically). We do not immediately divide ourselves in camps as an audience, because Claire does not divide herself into a camp.  She is simply Claire. Even her religious convictions and sexual orientation has very little to do with the LDS Church or the gay community. Her spiritual convictions and worship come from a very personal place, her relationship with God very intimate. We see no social coercion, or “group think” effecting her religious commitment or decisions. The same for her desires… she was not indoctrinated, nor overtly influenced into her homosexuality. Again, it’s a very personal struggle in her individual identity.

At the same time, she never lambasts either or these communities, although she could be, and in many ways is, defined by them. She never attacks the Mormons, she never repudiates the gays. There is no vindictive diatribes or dramatic demands made to either group. She doesn’t even demand acceptance (for being Mormon or being gay). You can go into that play as part of either group, and still leave the theater as part of either group. You can keep your beliefs about the issue. However, you can’t (unless your heart is made of iron) not care about Claire. Larson takes away the mask of the nameless cause or identitiless scape goat and forces you to put a face to it, a very personal face. She persuades you to see your friend, or your neighbor, or your sister. If you’re paying attention (how could you not?), and are an empathetic individual, she will even persuade you to see yourself.

It’s what makes the play brilliant and… good. Morally and spiritually, it tastes good.  It’s filled with love, sensitivity, and kindness, all of which are extended to the audience. The play has earned every award and accolade it has received through that sheer love, sensitivity, and kindness. What could be more beautiful than that?

THE CLEAR VOICED INDIVIDUAL

Which brings us back to the issue that has inadvertantly come up again and again in this series about New Play Project and Out of the Mount: the individual and the group.  With Larson’s powerful individualism, we have the foil to James Goldberg’s communal theater. What I observed about Mel’s relationship to New Play Project always intrigued me. She helped out and was a hard working member of the group. She staged managed, ran lights, was a dramaturg, etc. She was continually sacrificing her time and consecrating her abilities to assist in this good cause. But she always seemed to maintain her own separateness, as well. She had her own projects and causes and investments… she was always working on her own individual craft and drinking from her own individual experiences.

I love the communal aspect of New Play Project and theater in general. It’s one of the reasons I chose to focus on writing plays rather than novels. I really need to feel like I’m not alone, that I have friends and comrades around me. But it’s not enough to simply be a member of nebulous union or demographic. I need to know the people, I need to feel involved on a very personal basis. I need to care about the people around me, to feel their warmth, even if that warmth creates heat from time to time. Even if it creates occassional conflict. But it’s so much better than being alone and aloof. When we truly create a community, one worth keeping, it’s because we value and love the individuals within it. Any sort of family, or business, or organization, or church, or community is strengthened by valuing the single personalities that create it. In clamoring for a group identity, we must never crush the private spirit. For, after all, all of us are “alike unto God,” as the Book of Mormon tells us. In his eyes, there are no “-ites.”

New Play Project showed a mature understanding of this principle when they decided to throw their collective weight behind Larson’s individual vision. For her narrative voice, powerful and clear, proved to be a beautifully intimate descant, even as it was undergirded by the entire choir.

Photo by Vilo Elisabeth Westwood

Unlike many, I do not believe a text can truly be divorced from its author. Maybe it’s the historian in me, but the more I find out about an author, the more I am fascinated and enlightened by the text. So it’s difficult for me to address a work, when I have met the author, not to bring my experiences with, or knowledge of, the author to the text. So, first, I’ll talk about the author James Goldberg, as well as his relation to New Play Project. Then I’ll address his beautiful, award-winning play, “Prodigal Son.”

JAMES GOLDBERG AND THE COMMUNAL NARRATIVE

Now I wouldn’t call James Goldberg my best friend, although we are friends, and I certainly would love to be even friendlier. Yet there seems to have even been awkward tension during a few moments. We’ve seriously disagreed a couple of occasions. And I could tell that I annoyed him on at least a dozen occurrences..

However, I do think the world of him. And I think he is one of the best and unique writers Mormonism has. We should value him and the wealth of multiculturalism he brings to his Mormon faith and writing.  It’s interesting, the more and more I find truth in other religions, the more and more I believe in Mormonism. Comparing religions and cultures highlights the Gospel tinged truths whispered into the ears of every culture. And I get the sense from James that he believes the same thing.

James Goldberg comes from Jewish and Sikh heritages, while also happening to be a card carrying Mormon. When you talk to him, he isn’t shy about his diverse background and proudly celebrates his cultural past and freely intermingles it with his cultural present, not really distinguishing them. Because he shouldn’t distinguish them. Because Mormonism embraces all truth.  That is, if we should trust Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to be adequate spokesmen for Mormonism.

This idea of intermingling one’s diverse cultural and even religious identities is wonderfully evident in a good deal of Goldberg’s work, perhaps no where I have it seen so clearly so as in his fascinating and moving “Tales of Teancum Singh Rosenburgh.” In Mormon Artist’s first Contest Issue Goldberg mentions in an interview about the story , something that struck me:

Because the stories I was writing were so short, I didn’t have time to explain all the culture in them: the Jewish holidays that were thematically connected, the immigrant groups in each story. I figured in the age of Google, smart people could look up the stuff they didn’t get and discover the extra layers in the story, like mining for gems. Understandably, many of my class members didn’t take the time to look stuff up. What surprised me, though, was that the same people who hadn’t invested their time in the story were telling me to simplify it, to explain it more in terms they could understand. Some said they felt like I wasn’t including them because I wasn’t writing in their culture and explaining anything that came from anywhere else. And I thought, these stories wouldn’t be as beautiful if I explained them. And the best readers would get less out of them.

I also thought, I have unique stories to tell because of my own life heritage. Why should I only tell stories you can already fully understand? Isn’t one purpose of fiction to expand the reader? So I decided to write something next that did even more with mixing cultural traditions. I think when you get suggestions, you should try to respond to them, but responding doesn’t always mean doing what a suggestion says; sometimes you work against it instead, just to see if you can write that direction too.

Goldberg brought these ideas into his approach to New Play Project. From the get go, the writers’ roots in Mormonism was a vital part of NPP, and rather deflect that influence to write more secular work, NPP made their Mormon idiosyncrasies a central core to the organization. They wrote their Mormoness, not worrying whether that would stand in the way of the non-Mormons audiences that may not connect with cultural references or themes. In his preface to Out of the Mount Goldberg wrote:

So. Here we are… in a make shift theater in the Mormon community. Mormonism is technically a religion, but it’s also a tradition and a people–trust me, my last name is Goldberg, I understand how these things work. A religion can form a people. It’s been done before.

This people is a good people. We have a rich heritage that goes far beyond the founding of the Church in 1830. We’ve got unique institutions that have helped us keep a sense of community in an age when many communities are falling apart. And we have wisdom, a gift surprisingly rare in an age so saturated with information and opinion: we know something about how to treat each other, about our relationship to God, about the spiritual power that runs through this world. And along with that, we’ve got online sources with wisdom on food storage and stuff. Profound or practical, inherited wisdom is part of who we are.

This reminded me of a documentary I watched recently about the Old Testament. In it an archaeologist was theorizing, based on some ancient Jewish pottery they found which was astoundingly similar to the surrounding Canaanite pottery, that the Jews had not immigrated from Egypt at all, but rather had always been Canaanite. But that they had been the ostracized Canaanites, the poor, the destitute, the fringe. So they collected stories, created a text, which we now know as the Old Testament. Then they defined themselves by this text, created a whole new race and heritage of people.

Now I’m not sure I believe this (I’m not willing to throw away at least some sense of historicity of Genesis and the five books of Moses because of pottery shards). But I found the idea interesting and related it to what Goldberg is talking about. You can create a people, a culture and, perhaps in this supposed case about the Jews, a whole race by just declaring yourself so. In this case, it had nothing to do with genetic markers… it had everything to do with the creation of a narrative of a people, a story. As Mormons, we inherently understand that. The Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine and Covenants, the temple narrative, the stories of Joseph Smith and our early Church History, they all provide a powerful and potent rallying point.

We can be diverse as the creatures of the sea, of Middle Eastern, Indian, Asian, Polynesian, African, or European descent… and we can bring those heritages with us on our backs, like Goldberg has, and integrate them into a rich tapestry of universal (as far reaching as a world wide Zion), yet individual (as private as the soul), Mormonism. We can be a people (an inclusive people not determined by genetic markers!), not just a religion. We can be God’s people.

In my interactions with New Play Project, Goldberg’s vision-like goals always seemed to be at the center. I heard some members even jokingly call it the “James Play Project.” They were being sarcastic, of course, but there was some truth in it. Goldberg was one of the organizations founding members and seemed to be (at least from my perspective) the most persuasive and vigilant in giving the group a vision, a destination, instilling it with a passionate purpose. He’s a chief reason that the group has lasted this long. The money wasn’t there. The prestige wasn’t either. They were a small band of actors and writers, poor and distracted with the myriad of other concerns that plague college students. But when Goldberg would speak, he spoke as if they mattered, as if they could do something powerful. They spoke as if their common heritage in Mormonism and the theatrical arts could have a spiritual purpose beyond what any of them thought they were capable of.

And I consider it to be a prophecy fulfilled. Is it part of a new Mormon Renaissance? Doubtful. Possible, but doubtful. But by being brave enough to state it in those terms, by performing it as if it were true, by breathing in oracular fumes and letting prophetic uttering be written, they did something which I believe will have consequences which, even if they won’t be immediately obvious or traceable, will be deeply important to Mormon Arts, and perhaps even to Mormonism at large.

Am I waxing hyperbolic? No. No, I believe I am not. I am in complete earnest when I say that, whether New Play Project continues for many years to come (I hope they do) or not, that there was a resonating purpose to these seemingly insignificant students getting together to put on plays for the insular Utah County and BYU communities. And, whatever purpose that ends up being, Goldberg was at the forefront of that, in an unassuming button down short sleeve shirts and jeans, and a mad visionary’s wild growth of beard, sticking his staff in the water, believing to high heaven that the walls of water would rise.

FAITH LOST AND FAITH BORN IN “PRODIGAL SON”

When I read “Prodigal Son” this time, I had a much different experience with it than my previous encounters with the short play. When I had read or seen it performed before, I recognized it as one of the best plays New Play Project had yet produced, and a true triumph for James Goldberg. This time, however, it became much more personal and poignant to me, especially since I have recently seen a number of people I dearly love leave the LDS faith.

The play spins the classic Prodigal Son parable and switches the roles… the father is now the irreligious one, having abandoned his faith in Mormonism when he was younger, while the son disappoints his father by joining the LDS Church, even going so far to forestall his education to serve a mission. The Father’s monologue explaining his loss of faith is powerful and unnerving:

We’re far too casual, I think, in the way we talk about losing. “I’ve lost my keys,” for example, really means you’ve mislaid them….

I wish we wouldn’t dilute the best word we have for when things truly and permanently gone. “Lost cause” is a good phrase. It’s a cold, hard dose of reality. No one goes out to find a lost cause. It’s just lost. That phrase understands the power of the word’s finality….

So when I tell you that a long time ago I lost my faith, I don’t want you to imagine that I’ve misplaced it or that I could be capable of finding it again. Lost faith is like a lost limb… if it’s broken and bleeding, if you try to patch it up and it ends up inflamed and infected … at some point you have to cut it off. And after you’ve lost it the only thing left is the occasional  flash of phantom pain.

I lost my faith. Twenty years later I lost my wife. And now maybe I’m losing my son.

Don’t take away from me the only word I have to cope with all of that.

To those of us who still feel our testimonies vibrantly, this is a chilling moment in the play. It forces us to realize that those we love… who we cherish and have always taken for granted were going to stay in the Church… may not be coming to break the bread of faith with us any more. We still hold out hope that perhaps their paths may eventually lead them back to the beliefs they have now rejected… but what if they don’t? Not in this life. Perhaps not even in the next.

And if that connection to that common community is completely gone… what next? Is there a piece of that relationship that is now completely irretrievable? Is there a distance, a gulf that is now permanent? Or, if there is not hope in retrieving the common faith , does that mean that there aren’t equally valuable aspects of that relationship that can be salvaged, perhaps even strengthened? And what about the reversal that Goldberg explores here… when an atheistic father sees his son abandon what he considers to be rational truth, to stumble into what he considers to be an oppressive superstition, is that not equally traumatic to the man without faith?

I think of Lehi. When in his dream of the Tree of Life he sees in vision his sons turn away from the tree, the fruit, the family, the chance for redemption… and they’re gone, into the mists of darkness. He wakes up the next morning with no sense of hopeful resolution with these two beloved sons. There was no prodigal son returns moment in that dream. They’re just gone. “Lost” in the sense that the father’s faith in “Prodigal Son” is lost. The sense of desolation that would come upon me as a parent at that point would be nigh unbearable. In the Book of Mormon he still tries to encourage them, to save them, but you get the sense that much of the hope is gone. He senses it, realizes it. After grieving this loss, he strives to plant some sort of faith in the children of Laman and Lemuel, hoping that the priesthood blessings he gives them will eventually bless those who come after. But even with those blessings, Lehi seems to understand that this loss is going to have traumatic repercussions for his posterity.

I have thought a lot about my loved ones who left the faith for the past several months. I’ve prayed, pondered, and grieved over them. With some of them, I still hope for some kind of turn around. For some of them, I am starting to understand that they may be “lost” to the faith… forever. I’ve had to try and come with grips with that, try to understand how that should and shouldn’t change the dynamics of our relationship. My love for them is no less, my hopes for their success and happiness in this life no less fervent. If they can’t ever agree with me on this vital thing, then I certainly do not want to sacrifice the parts of our relationship that can still be salvaged. If you lose an arm, you don’t want to lose the leg as well. “Prodigal Son” brings up many of these sobering realities, all while still having an under-girding of spirituality and love.

The “wayward” son is, of course, the flip side to this  equation, being recently born into the faith. His conversion is real, never emotionally forced and never didactic. He’s a seasoned, likable character of faith and kindness, but capable of real grief due to this division from the father he has felt so close to in the past. Despite the havoc his conversion made in his life, however, the fire of his faith is undeniable and worth the pain. The son’s statements of spirituality are powerful:

I couldn’t tell it to him, then, but … all my life. I’d been waiting for something, you know? And I never knew what. But I’d have these feelings sometimes like when I went to my friend’s Bar Mitzvah, and it was like God was on a train but there weren’t any scheduled stops to pick me up. And maybe I could have run, maybe I could have jumped up there in front of everybody and said, “Hey, can it be my turn now? I know I’m not Jewish, but… Bar Mitzvah me, too!”

….I figured if God’s a train, and fate didn’t leave me any stops …maybe I’ve got to stand on the tracks. I can’t get on smoothly like everyone else, but if I take that step out onto those tracks then God’ll have to hit me. And I’ll know then whatever it is the prophets and saints used to know.

Goldberg, as much as anyone, instilled in New Play Project it’s ability to ask the hard questions, while never snapping the cord that tied them to the household of faith. In this information age of easy access and inquisitive fingers, gone are the days when a Latter-day Saint could simply put down the questions and expect that to satiate the inquisitor. You can’t hide documents, you can’t dodge inquiries. If we as a Church and as its members are not equipped to handle the tough issues, then a doubter can simply find all sorts of alternative attacks on the Church with a few quick key strokes.

Thus I believe it’s very important that, as Mormon writers, actors, artists, scholars, and thinkers, that we engage in the kind of work that is able to unflinchingly tackle the most disheartening and conflicted parts of our narratives. And I’m not necessarily calling for apologetics, although being a huge fan of C.S. Lewis, I warmly understand that they have their very necessary place as well. But writers like Goldberg are showing the complexity of the lives we live as Mormons. He is showing how, as Joseph Smith said, “in proving contraries, the truth is made manifest.”

James and I used to argue a little bit about show length. My shows tend to run long, while I would tease him that he had never written a full length play. Goldberg was a kind of champion for the usefulness and power of the short play. Although I still feel that our culture suffers from a post MTV/ Sesame Street short attention span, and I long for an audience who can sit through uncut Shakespeare and massive Eugene O’Neil playing times,  Goldberg certainly proved his point with “Prodigal Son” on how the short play can be a truly powerful form. I believe it may be the only short play to have won the Association for Mormon Letters’ Best Drama award and it was a very well deserved win.

But beyond form, its the soulful content of Goldberg’s work that digs deep into our hearts and bares the secrets we have kept there. Unearthed, we search through the record written thereon, and discover the Mormon in each of us, the Jew in each of us, the Hindu in each of us, the Christian in each of us. We realize that these stories we tell, whether you believe them literally or not, whether you have faith in them or not, the narrative has meaning, has significance… the narrative is true.

For the actual review of the majority of the short plays in Out of the Mount (a fuller treatment on Little Happy Secrets and “Prodigal Son” will follow) , I was considering doing little mini-reviews for each short play. However, as I got caught up reading the anthology, I noticed two distinct qualities that kept reoccurring that not only expressed the nature of the volume, but the nature of New Play Project itself. So it is with those two major elements in mind that I approach this volume of the work of the remarkable New Play Project, the young and the religious.

THE YOUNG

As one reads the plays in Out of the Mount, one quickly gets the sense of the demographic of authors that these plays have been written by: New Play Project consist of young, college-aged playwrights. With the exception of Eric Samuelsen and perhaps one or two others, the majority of these writers were under 30 when they wrote these plays…most likely under 25. Most of them were single, college aged students when these plays were written and first produced, the vast majority of them hailing from Brigham Young University (with an occassional UVU student). Now this is one of the volume’s greatest strengths and its greatest limitation. A limitation, because it naturally limits the breadth of  experience that informs these works. An immense strength, because the plays are infused with the kinetic energy, the passion, the exploring bravery, and the vibrant openness that comes with being young. It also helps that, though young, these writers are smart. And talented.

It’s almost comical how many of the plays are about a young man and a young woman arguing. In the first play of the volume “Adam and Eve,” Davey Morrison introduces us to an Adam and Eve who aren’t quite full fledged, mature adults, but who don’t have their previous wide-eyed innocence either. They’re young adults who have progressed beyond teenage attitudes, but held onto a lot of that angst, raw emotion, vulnerability, and sarcasm that informs so much of that transition in life. It’s an interesting and insightful portrayal. But the heart of the piece, although it touches upon Adam and Eve’s relationship with God at the end, is more focused on Adam and Eve’s budding relationship to each other.

Arisael Rivera’s “The Look,” Deborah Yarchun’s “On Gonoga Falls” (although this dynamic is given a twist at the end), and Morrison’s “Eleven O’Clock News” all have similar “young-male-female-argument” relationship dynamics to them. Although in “Eleven O’Clock News” the couple is married, it’s obvious that they are a young, married couple, who have never even discussed their attitudes about having children before now (I heartily recommend having that conversation before getting married, by the way). Again, this could be, and sometimes is, a big weakness with these plays. But more often than not, to see a relationship at its inception, to see the world through younger eyes again, to have that wonder and confusion and barely lost innocence all mixed up with still raging hormones and self doubt… it’s a kind of frantic magic.

It’s interesting to see even Eric Samuelsen get into this game. His piece “The Exact Total Opposite” is perhaps the prime example of the young-adult-relationship-drama genre displayed in the volume. Which is kind of ironic since Samuelsen is the most bonafide, long established adult in the mix (in his 40s?). But it makes sense, when you know Eric. He told me once in an interview:

Well, I love the next generation of Mormon playwrights, and I’m exceedingly optimistic about the future. I love teaching at BYU. Ibsen once said that he loved being around young people, because they kept his own mind from growing old–I feel the same way. I love it when students go ‘hey, you should listen to Franz Ferdinand, what a great band,’ and I do and they are.

So Samuelsen is a natural match with this group. He may be getting older, but he refuses to act like that matters. I’m certain that he could tell you more about modern music and culture than I ever could (he probably could have done so when I was still in high school…I’m kind of old fashioned that way, have always been an “old soul”). Samuelsen keeps himself fresh, up to date, and contemporary. Being a professor to young college students, I’m sure, helps with that endeavor.

So Samuelsen’s “The Exact Total Opposite” takes that track, being about a young man who practically stalks a young girl (at least from her perspective) after she broke up with him and decides that the best way to try and win her back to is to sell his car and buy her an engagement ring. Hm. Hrm. Now this was one of the most frustrating pieces in the volume for me personally. This is the kind of piece that ruined my life for a little while. The play sets up a very dysfunctional relationship, pairing a verbally abusive, sometimes cruel, cynical young woman with a wishy washy, emotionally intense young man. Their relationship  consists of a lot of really unhealthy dynamics. Then, to my audible aghast, she takes the bait and they’re going to get married.

YAAARGH! This is the kind of story that I ate up in high school and early college (Jane Eyre is still, reluctantly, one of my favorite novels). Having filled my head with this sort of love conquers all melodrama, I ran into a similar situation in early college. A poor, unsuspecting girl broke up with me, and I, being filled with these sort of romantic notions planted in my head by romantic comedies and Jane Austen, didn’t know that when she said, “I still want to be friends,” she really meant, “It’s irretrievably over, utterly destroyed, and I really don’t think we should ever talk again. Like ever.”

I was innocent, naive, really kind of pitiful, and strived to, like the boy in this story, find a way to win her back. It led to some disastrous consequences, which were preceded with notes left at her apartment, “Saturday’s Warrior” daydreams, rambling phone messages, some gifts, and even some instances where she thought I was stalking her because I happened to go to plays where she was in the audience/ cast, or I had play rehearsals in the same building where she had class (there was even this time I was waiting outside David Morgan’s office for rehearsal when she was going to Eric Samuelsen’s playwriting class across the hall.   Yeah, it totally looked like I was stalking her, just waiting outside her class. Groan). I still tend to the scars that were left by the aftermath of the experience.  It was pretty horrendous.

And pretty typical. Especially at that stage of life. I have seen this basic story played over and over again in the lives of young people, and it usually self destructs with, uhm, a dinosaur killing crater in its wake. Which is why I wondered, “Why in the name of all free thinking sanity is Eric writing this?! With a ‘happy’ ending, no less!!!” Samuelsen, you see, was a sort of witness to the aforementioned events in my life and I found it disturbing that he was putting a happy, positive spin on the ending of this kind of story. But then I thought, “Oh, maybe it’s satire.”   That made me feel so much better about it. But then there’s also the thought… “Maybe sometimes that ending happens. Maybe some people find happiness in their relationship, despite the obviously unhealthy elements of their relationship.” That’s the hope which fuels a lot of hard marriages.

I wrote a short play once that is somewhat similar to “The Exact Total Opposite.” It was called “Immortal Hearts,” which I wrote for an Extreme Theatre 24 hour event (and which was recently revived, years later, in a collection of my short plays this last summer). At that point, I  knew the real ending to that story wasn’t going to be happy, so I decided to create a world for my characters where it could exist. Ironically, although she liked other plays in the set, “Immortal Hearts” was pummeled in Bianca Dillard’s review of the set of plays in UTBA. Perhaps it deserved it. I suspect it may have. But young people keep writing stories like this. Some of them even become powerful pieces of literature, ala the Bronte sisters. It’s part of our psyche, part of our human experiences, part of our wrenched, broken hearts.

And especially part of being young. Some of those experiences are painful. Some of those experiences are hilarious. Some of those experiences are bewildering. And some are ecstatically, enthusiastically joyful… skyrocketing with life.

And not all these stories center around angsty, sarcastic romance by the way. Some of them deal with the increasing distance created between young people and their parents, such as Matthew Greene’s beautiful “Foxgloves” and James Goldberg’s powerful “Prodigal Son.” Some of the plays deal with the neurological baggage we start coming to grips with at that point in life, such as Bianca Dillard’s “No One’s Superman” and Yarchun’s “On Gonoga Falls.” And Adam Stallard’s “Irrational Numbers” (still one of my favorite plays ever produced by New Play Project) handily tackles both of those topics. And some even jump into absurdism like Julie Saunders’ “Caution”; Immigration, like Lyvia Martinez’s “Illegal Alien”; or the threat of our own mortality, as in Morrison’s “To Be Continued.” Even Samuelsen’s portrayal of a pre-mortal Lucifer in “Gaia” has a youthful glint to him. Lucifer has the cynical, self assured (yet so fragile) hostility of one who has just begun to doubt, that has just disconnected himself from his parents for the first time, and is drunk on that new found freedom. And he has that flippant, (pardon the term) “devil may care” attitude… except with the attached resentment that not only wants to disconnect himself from his former faith, but also wants to throw a monkey in the works and flip off all his previously treasured beliefs that he now believes weighed him down and oppressed him all these years.

Whatever the topic, however, the playwrights of New Play Project approach their work with the vigor and open searching that comes before we eventually settle into the complacency of the defined social and political labels we decide to semi-permanently adopt into our adult lives. But at this point of youthful awe we are all still keen sighted explorers, seeing how far our horizons truly stretch. That youthful enthusiasm is part of the sparkling beauty behind the work of New Play Project.

It would be interesting, however, to see New Play Project mature even farther than the college aged niche that its created for itself in Utah Valley. One only has to look around at the audiences of New Play Project’s sets of short plays to see who their chief patrons are. The audience is almost always completely filled with BYU and UVU college students. This was who their plays were really written for, and the demographics in the seats reflect at how successfully they achieved that end.

However, something interesting happened when New Play Project produced my plays Swallow the Sun and The Fading Flower. More than once I was told by a number of New Play Project staff members at how surprised they were at how much “gray hair” they saw in the audience. My plays were centering around C.S. Lewis, period dramas, and Mormon History. These were subjects which, although still interesting to a younger crowd, naturally attracted an older demographic. It was a phenomenon New Play Project hadn’t seen with their previous outings. I guess I’m the opposite of Eric Samuelsen that way. Although he’s older than I am, he still feels young at heart. While I was always told that I was serious for my age. A friend in high school used to tease me about how “sober” I was. How old I seemed. But perhaps New Play Project could use a little more “gray hair,” not only  in their audience, but in the ranks of its staff and writers.

For one thing, New Play Project has a retention problem. Once its staff graduates or gets married, they’re often off into other horizons. Its original members and writers are now far flung all across the country. Having more contributers, like Eric Samuelsen, who have a more settled investment in the area would assist in creating a more stable crew for NPP to thrive in. Of course, for any established member of the community to take away time from their career and family is difficult, especially if its not a paid position.

But I personally would at least love to see some more veteran playwrights in the mix of NPP’s plays. Has NPP tried to solicit plays from the likes of Margaret Young, James Arrington, Scott Bronson, Elizabeth Howe, Bob Elliott, Thom Rogers, or Tim Slover? It could create a whole new dynamic for New Play Project, while still retaining the interest of the college crowd.

Making an audience member out of a college student is wonderful (especially within the dating scene, where the audience comes two by two), but they’re a transient crowd. A lot of them you’ll have for only four years, tops. But if you make an audience member out of somebody who is sticking around in the community, they could be a patron for decades. Not to mention that they often have more discretionary income to spend on the arts in the first place. The Hale Centre Theatre in Utah has this formula down to an art. In practical terms, a little bit of gray hair goes a long way.

AND THE RELIGIOUS

More defining than their youthfulness, however, is New Play Project’s spirituality. From the outset, New Play Project has established themselves as a religious organization. And this, frankly, is refreshing. Those of us who interact with the arts know how often it can be an environment that is hostile to faith, especially if you happen to Mormon. In a post Prop 8 world, that is becoming increasingly true, with plays as lauded and as powerful as Angels in America creating a really bitter taste in the mouth of theatrical artists against Mormonism. You don’t even have to get that high brow. You don’t have to look farther than South Park to see the derision and misconstruction that has built up against Mormons in popular culture, even in those rare moments when they do it with a more benign and less hostile touch. So to have New Play Project foster a place where Mormon dramatists and actors can gather and create something that truly represents them is a godsend.

However, New Play Project doesn’t take the easy route in this approach. It’s an organization that is a place of faith, but earned faith. Their plays aren’t trite or didactic. They grapple with hard issues and hard questions. They don’t settle for propaganda or stereotypical narratives. And that is certainly reflected in Out of the Mount.

Some of the plays are pretty straight forward, like the light hearted “On Being a Priest” by Mary and Eric “C” Heaps, which puts a Catholic Priest and a 16 year old Mormon “priest” and starts making the glaring comparison between the two of them. Again, simple and fun stuff. Then, still with a light touch, but a little more searching attitude, we travel with two sister missionaries in Goldberg’s “Book of Mormon Story” into the home of an investigator who believes the Book of Mormon “as far as it is translated correctly” and tells us why he believes King Noah was doing cocaine. Funny play, but then it touches on a real spirituality as we realize that this man really does believe in Book or Mormon, albeit with a non-traditional lens. Then there’s the sweet “Little Boy Mo” by Alexandra Mackenzie, in which God plays with a little child, responds to his questions, and its never entirely clear which side of the veil they’re on.

Melissa Leilani Larson’s “Burning in the Bosom” is especially effective in its set up of a young woman’s train of thought during sacrament meeting, where her thoughts wander from the inconsequential to the secular, but leads to perhaps her first legitimately understood experience with the Holy Ghost.

Things start getting heavier, however, with plays like Matthew Greene’s “Foxgloves” and Katherine Gee’s “Based on Truish Stories” as we start dealing with characters who doubt to counteract those characters who believe. These are still faith promoting plays but, again, faith that is earned. And they’re subtle in their spirituality, letting it come naturally and organically. These two plays, especially, are crafted with true artistry and beauty. I’m particularly fond of “Based on Truish Stories,” whose comparitive religion approach transcends Mormonism and connects to the spirituality that binds all people of faith together, even when our particular stories don’t allow us to bond with each other completely.

These all lead to the grand crescendo that are found in Eric Samuelsen’s “Gaia,” James Goldberg’s “Prodigal Son,” and Melissa Leilani Larson’s Little Happy Secrets. Since I’ll be addressing both “Prodigal Son” and Little Happy Secrets more in depth in the last two parts of this series, right now I’ll just focus on “Gaia” and how it relates to what New Play Project is trying to do.

“Gaia,” by the way, is part of a larger set of short plays which are an interesting interplay of the Old Testament stories seen with a feminist lens (which, I believe, had a complete performance at the Covey Center… oh, the great Mormon Drama I miss living out of Utah now). This feminism plays an important part in the stand alone “Gaia” which also played during one of New Play Project’s short play festivals.

I’ve already discussed how Samuelsen portrays Lucifer in the play, so let’s take a look at how deals with Gaia, a name Samuelsen uses for the pre-mortal Eve (the name Gaia is from Greek mythology, by the way, who is Mother Earth, mother of the Titans). This is a transition point for the relationship between these two characters. We get a sense from Gaia that she saw Lucifer not only as an equal, a peer, a friend, but also a possible mate: “It could have been you in the Garden,” Gaia says at one point, “It was between you and Michael.” So the flippant way he dismisses “the plan” which she knows he once agreed to creates a real sense of loss in Gaia.

But Gaia is not a character from Saturday’s Warrior, despite the pre-mortal setting. This is where Samuelsen’s voice comes out clearest, his world view’s broadcast most in focus. Anyone who knows Eric and is familiar with his socially conscious work, knows that he’s politically leftist, culturally humanist. However, if you intermix his Mormonism with those strange bedfellows, that’s when Samuelsen’s work really begins to pop and boil.

“Gaia” puts the pre-mortal Eve as a power player in the pre-existence, as part of the inner circle. Interestingly enough, Samuelsen subtly taps into the tradition of Wisdom, the Hebrew Goddess (later adopted by the Gnostics and which conveniently lends itself to Mormon concepts of a Heavenly Mother), being the one to “brood over the waters” by making Gaia the “chief engineer” of the primordial waters wherein are the origins of life. She’s not a silently domestic nor docile woman back in the kitchen while the pre-mortal men work at creation. She’s a scientist, part of the governing council, a pioneer of the work that is about to come about in mortality, a woman of substance and intelligence, all while being a faithful supporter of Heavenly Parents, Yahweh and the “plan” they advocate.

In this intellectually and spiritually sharp work, Samuelsen brings in designed evolution, pre-Josiah polytheistic Judaism, and strong flavored feminism, all while keeping them in the perfectly orthodox Mormon concepts of the pre-existence, the progressive enlightenment of Eve, the progressive nature of godhood (male and female), and the fall of Satan. For a ten minute play, that’s pretty impressive. And it displays the interesting interplay between faith and scholarship that New Play Project has cultivated, in which a play can be so intellectually fascinating, while always undergirded by sound Mormon faith and concepts.

Many of these plays may not fit the framework of Utah based, cultural Mormonism. Many members still cringe at pretty basic concepts hinted at by Samuelsen, such as evolution and even the most moderate of feminism (although I sincerely doubt that most conservative Mormons would find anything too offensive in this or any NPP show).  Whatever the case, the spirit and faith infused into the plays of New Play Project  is poignant and pervasive, more apt to keep people within the faith (despite any cultural concerns), than drive them out of it. It points up and highlights how faith and theater and literature and scholarship can all serve as sisters rather than rivals. Their mission is to create value based art. Some people think that is an oxymoron, that once you add morality into the mix of art, once you give it a “message,” it transforms the recipe into propaganda. However, I have not seen that unproductive attitude within the ranks of New Play Project. They are not afraid of questions, just as they are not afraid of answers. As the Lord says, “Ask and ye shall receive.” New Play Projects asks, and often they ask the hard questions. But, oh, how they receive!

I’ve had an interesting and fruitful relationship with New Play Project over the past several years. They have helped me produce three of my plays (including two of my favorite pieces, The Fading Flower and Swallow the Sun), and were excellent collaborators, critics, visionaries, and artisans.  However, although I count many of their members as dear friends, I was never in the center of the organization, but rather an occasional partner, flirting with the group on the outskirts… an outsider who occasionally came in from the cold. This put me in an odd position, where I was able to watch their inner workings, while never really being a part of them. This allowed me to be both a cheerleader and a critic. A confidante and a stranger. A partner and a rival. We had similar visions, but different paths.

A good example of this divergence of paths can be gleaned from  the beautiful anthology of New Play Project’s best plays which this series of posts is going to review and reflect on… Out of the Mount: 19 from New Play Project. I was originally asked to contribute one of my full length plays produced with NPP, either The Fading Flower or Swallow the Sun as part of this volume. However, I chose to opt out, as I have been in talks with a publisher to possibly publish a selection of my plays. In deference to this possible volume of my plays, I decided against being included.  My individual project took precedence for me over this superb collective collection. Which is an interesting illustration of how NPP and I have found ourselves on different trajectories the last few years (hold on, I promise, this is not simply self conscious navel gazing, there’s a reason I’m inserting myself into this narrative).

NPP is a wonderful group effort, adapting and morphing as people enter in and out of the organization. That’s their strength and their weakness…it’s the vision, the movement that is the emphasis, not the individual artists. It’s very Zion-like that way. Its roster of leaders and foot soldiers have been in constant flux since their inception, while their vision of “values driven theatre” informed by a varied range, but ultimately collective, set of Mormon beliefs.   Meanwhile, my work has been centered on, well, frankly, my own vision of Mormon beliefs and values. It’s been very artist-centric, for better or worse.

Which brings up an interesting correlation. In this volume, one of NPP’s founders, as well as one of Mormonism’s best playwrights, James Goldberg writes about the Harlem Renaissance in his essay, “Towards a Mormon Renaissance.” I’ll touch even more on this more later, as the Harlem Renaissance has been a subject that has been dear to my heart for many years, ever since I took a class on it in my early college days. But a similar division, between the movement and the individual artist, arose in the Harlem Renaissance. Some of the African-American artists were intent on being part of this larger artistic movement that was occurring in Harlem at the time, while others saw the movement as stifling their individual voices and visions.  Pioneers like W.E.B. DuBois were trying to make the African-American artistic community a cohesive unit while other artisans chaffed at what they thought was a group who were more interested in their common heritage, rather than their individual voices. 

This played out in a dramatic way when two of the Harlem Renaissance’s brightest stars, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, decided to come together in this spirit of collaboration to create a play called Mule Bone. The results were rather disastrous, as the two strong minded artists eventually came to their inevitable differences. As the project neared its completion, issues involving who to credit (including the typist Lousie Thompson, whom they dictated the play to); their relationship with a patron (Mrs. Rufus Osgood Mason, with whom Hughes was severing his relationship, while Hurston wanted to remain in her good graces); plus an eventual theft of intellectual property (when applying for the copyright, Hurston had the gall to list herself as the sole author); all led to an explosion of their once strong friendship. The play was not produced until 1991, over 60 years after they first began on the project, and long after both Hughes and Hurston were dead. After the production, most critics agreed… for all that fuss, the play wasn’t actually all that good.

Ironically, NPP helped me understand this conflict between the individual and the group after they had planned on helping me produce the revival of my play Farewell to Eden, but then dropped out after NPP’s board decided it wasn’t worth their involvement after all. The individual had been ushered out by the group. A good deal of money, time, manpower, and rehearsal had already been invested into Farewell to Eden by that point, so my producing partner Jacob Figueira and I had to make a quick decision. We had the funds, but not the organization. So I quickly and somewhat haphazardly created my sole proprietorship organization Zion Theatre Company, and that’s the banner my work has gone under since then. I had intended to travel with New Play Project a little longer, but was forced from the nest on this occasion. I’ve been trying to keep in the air since then, and it’s gone relatively well.

After all, I started out independent of NPP, having had a number of my plays associated with Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University), the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, and other organizations. With the help of some wonderful mentors, I had already carved out my identity as a Mormon playwright long before I came across NPP. I was an independent agent then, I was when I worked with NPP, and I continue to be one. I’m set in a very specific, very individual course, which I feel the Lord outlined to me many years ago.

However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have the utmost respect and fondness for New Play Project, its mission, and its members. I have bright, beautiful memories collaborating with them, which is a far cry from the kind of tension that grew up between artists like Hughes and Hurston. NPP are doing something utterly magnificent with the barest of resources… they’re running on the fumes of the Spirit and the calls of prophets like Spencer W. Kimball and Orson F. Whitney, who have long called for the kind of work that they are delivering. Having been a producer, director, writer, actor, assistant stage manager,  assistant props master, costume designer, stage crew, house manager, “fill in the blank here” for many productions, I know how difficult what they do is, and how miraculous their outcome has been. 

This volume of NPP’s plays, Out of the Mount, is yet another outgrowth of their miraculous movement. I received my copy of it in the mail last night (for my upcoming birthday), and I have plowed through a good portion of it already. It has brought back many wonderful memories, including my first experience with NPP, seeing a collection of their early plays at the Provo Library, when they were performing on planks and cinder blocks. It was a pretty rough operation back then, a strange and potent mixture of the painfully amateur and the sublime.  And I believe it was also on that occasion when I was thrilled to hear James Goldberg address one of my favorite subjects in the pre-show essay… the Harlem Renaissance. And he even tied it to Mormon Literature and Drama, a correlation I had often thought of myself when I took my Harlem Renaissance class at UVSC. In this instance, Goldberg had found a ready and enthusiastic audience member for his sermon. This clear outlining of vision was powerful and dynamic, and at that moment James Goldberg became the W.E.B. DuBois of Mormon Drama.

Since then NPP has gone through quite the metamorphoses. Gone are the boards and cinder blocks, gone are the amateurish scripts. The vast majority of their work, despite their still limited resources, are polished and powerful, especially the quality of NPP’s writers. Their semi-permanent home (at least for the past few years) at the Provo Theatre is a lovely space. They have established a loyal audience and corps of now experienced volunteers. Their productions of “Prodigal Son” and Little Happy Secrets have won back to back Association for Mormon Letters Awards for Best Drama. New Play Project is a respected and vibrant force within the Mormon theatrical community. Vision is becoming reality, a prophetic fulfillment. If they can keep their momentum, New Play Project could still be a power player in the Mormon Arts scene for years to come.

With James Goldberg, Adam Stallard, Melissa Leilani Larson, Arisael Rivera, Eric Heaps, and many of the old guard bowing out, or having long bowed out, for other projects and life focuses, leadership of the group has been passed down to the very able hands of Davey Morrison, Bianca Dillard-Morrison (who has been with the group from the beginning), and Steve and Teresa Gashler. All of them are very talented, able, and intelligent individuals. New Play Project still has a very promising future.

So… are we really in a Mormon Renaissance? Or have we been in one for quite a while? After all, we’ve had powerful writers, dramatists, visual artists, and musicians before now. Our literary heritage links all the way back to Parley P. Pratt. One could even argue that its linked back to Joseph Smith. We had our own “lost generation” of writers in the 1920s. BYU has been a huge force in Mormon Arts, Music, and Letters for decades. We’ve had our Orson Scott Cards, our Levi Petersons, our James Christensens, our Minerva Teicherts, our Eric Samuelsens, our Thomas Rogers, our Osmonds, our Gladys Knights and, yes, our Stephanie Meyers. It’s not an impossible feat to hear of any number of famous Mormon artists, musicians, and writers.

But a movement. A renaissance. That’s actually different, quite different, in fact, than a handful of successful artists with a common heritage. One could argue that the Mormon Renaissance began with the advent of Richard Dutcher and the LDS film movement he created. Perhaps even earlier with the school of thoughts within the BYU Theatre Department under the opposing tutelage of Charles Whitman and Max Golightly. Or perhaps it can be connected to the pioneering of people like Eugene England, Margaret Young, Douglas Thayer, Susan E. Howe, and Levi Peterson. Or perhaps the creation of the literary arm of Deseret Book. Or the establishment of the Association for Mormon Letters and other like groups.

Whatever the case, groups like New Play Project, Zarahemla Books, and, yes, even modern blogs like A Motley Vision have been rising up, all with defined visions and strong, artistic ambitions. They strive to connect their art to their religious heritage in a very purposeful, vibrant way. Whether the larger world takes notice or not, I believe we may very well be in the midst of a Mormon Renaissance now, or at least the beginning of one. And we’re starting to realize it. With projects like  Out of the Mount, their short play festivals, and their productions of longer works,  New Play Project has gained a well earned, prominent place among this supposed movement.

But, for just a moment, let’s take a look at Shakespeare. Yes, Shakespeare. Isn’t that what Orson F. Whitney called for “Miltons and Shakespeares of our own?” Shakespeare was not of an age “but for all time,” as Ben Johnson put it. Which was a very prescient  and unselfish comment coming from a contemporary playwright and rival of Shakespeare. It’s a very true and prophetic statement. Shakespeare lived in a competitive time, artistically. His plays had to go up against playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Phillip Massinger, Thomas Kyd, and, as before stated, Ben Johnson. Talented men, all. Some of them were even attached to groups and movements, as Marlowe was. But he is not often directly associated with them, he is not part of their elite group. Robert Greene even went so far as to purposely snub and distance Shakespeare from the artistic groups of the age by calling Shakespeare an “upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers.” An Elizabethan and Jacobean playwight as Shakespeare was, and as part of the original Renaissance as he was, the Bard created his own identity that rose above all those labels. He had his very own adjective created for him… “Shakespearean.”

The reason I bring that up is that I think that New Play Project, perhaps  accidentally, but I suspect purposefully, is fulfilling the vital role of helping its writers rise above its movement. Both Melissa Leilani Larson and James Goldberg have been making independent names for themselves, before and after their involvement with NPP, and are known as writers within their own right. And I think that is a good thing.

Art can be associated with a movement but, in the end, it has to be much more personal and soulful than that for it to have any sort of resonance within the human heart. Artists within the Harlem Renaissance found Shakespeare’s maxim in King Lear, “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,” very difficult to fulfill when they were asked to have their art continually correlated and directed towards the propaganda of the African-American movement.

This a very real, and very important tension which has been noted by nearly all artists associated with a community throughout the ages. And I think that the tension created is vital. Whether you’re Chaim Potok, Zora Neale Hurston, or Orson Scott Card, the reigns of a moral culture and the freedom of the individual heart are both valuable tools, if used correctly. Renaissances are powerful things, creating a focused change, a powerful thrust forward for entire communities. However, Humanism, the power of the individual, was at the heart of the original Renaissance. And the individual civil rights of all humankind, was at the heart of the Harlem Renaissance. These were necessarily balanced by the needs of a community that transcended the selfishness that would be so easy to give into.

If we are indeed emerging into a Mormon Renaissance,  I hope that groups like New Play Project continue to use their organizations as a stepping ladder for its individual artists (as I believe they currently do) and realize that the organization is not the end, in and of itself. Rather, that they are providing an invaluable (and changing) service that may one day truly create “Shakespeares of our own.” Mormonism itself provides a model for that. It is a religion that both focuses on creating a society, a communal Zion, while still making room for individual exaltation, where each of us can literally become gods and goddesses. This is the perfect marriage, a Bride and Bridegroom that give and take, serve and be served, exalt and debase themselves for the good of the community and the individual. I have seen for myself New Play Project do just this with their art, for the good of all involved.

The further installments of this series on my reactions to Out of the Mount: 19 Plays from New Project will focus more specifically on the content of the anthology, the plays themselves. I will also do longer, more in depth reviews on the plays of James Goldberg and Melissa Leilani Larson’s Little Happy Secrets.

Tonight in Provo, New Play Project begins a series of shows featuring five of their most popular plays:

“A Burning in the Bosom,” by Melissa Leilani Larson
“Foxgloves,” by Matthew Greene
“Gaia,” by Eric Samuelsen
“Adam and Eve,” by Davey Morrison
“Prodigal Son,” by James Goldberg

I have a vested interest in these revivals as I helped publish, through Peculiar Pages, the volume Out of the Mount which features these and fourteen other excellent plays produced by NPP over their short yet remarkably fruitful existence.

Currently, you can get two-for-one tickets to the first weekend’s shows if you invite ten or more Provo-local Facebook friends to the Facebook Event. They are also doing straight-up ticket giveaways to tonight’s show on their website and Facebook page.

I’m quite jealous of anyone close enough to see the show. I’ve gone on and on elsewhere about how much I love “Gaia” (1) and “Prodigal Son” (1 2) but all five of these plays are excellent and worthy of your attention (1 2 3 4 5 6). (Seventh witness via William Morris.)

Go and witness for yourself (Sept. 16-20 and 24-27, 7:30pm; $7 general admission, $6 students with ID).

And pick up a copy of Out of the Mount.

Then return and report.

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For those unable to attend, just buy the book already! Dally not!

I noticed this tendency towards the topical recently because of news stories about the recent opening in Los Angeles of Carol Lynn Pearson’s play Facing East, in which an LDS couple struggles with the suicide of their excommunicated gay son. [I've read reviews in both the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times.] Other LDS plays I’ve seen produced outside of Utah also kind of fall into this category; for example, Julie Jensen’s play Two Headed was produced here in New York City nearly a decade ago.

While I can’t say that this is a clear trend in any way. There are certainly LDS plays that are topical and yet still only get performed in those same few venues. It also may be that the playwright’s residence outside of Utah is a factor somehow–Pearson lives in California and Jensen in Las Vegas (if I recall correctly).

It is also easy to see why some LDS authors shy away from topical subjects. The most dependable audience for LDS-themed plays has to be in Utah, but it is easy to see why much of that audience might dislike topical works because they often challenge conventional ways of thinking about their subject. On the other hand, without that challenge to convention, it is difficult to attract the interest of theaters outside of Utah, who are faced with tens of thousands of possible scripts to perform.

I’m sure this isn’t the only factor that LDS playwrights face in writing plays. Familiarity with the subject has to be an important factor — for example, Pearson is intimately familiar with the issues of homosexuality in Facing East, since her late husband was gay and died of AIDS, her daughter is divorced from a gay man, and she has friends that have struggled with being gay in the Church, such as her friend and early collaborator, Trevor Southey. Likewise, Jensen’s background is in southern Utah, where Two Headed is set.

Still, with the inherent difficulty of getting LDS plays performed, and the benefit that I, at least, see in getting a non-LDS audience for LDS works, it sure seems like topical subjects may present an easier road to getting works before a national audience. And such plays don’t necessarily turn off LDS audiences, if done right. Gideon Burton, on his blog, recently reviewed Melissa Leilani Larson’s play Little Happy Secrets (produced for the New Play Project), which also deals with homosexuality, suggesting that it “is an unqualified success.” [I understand that Mahonri will cover it here also.]

I hate to suggest what anyone should write about, so I guess I’m just throwing out some food for thought. What do you think?