History of Salt Lake City, Part 96

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

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The company played in the " Old Bowery " for two years, during which time a number of high class plays were performed, one of which was the cele- brated play of "The Stranger ; " the brilliant James Ferguson took the title role.

In 1851 the Musical and Dramatic Company was reorganized and named the " Deseret Dramatic Association," with Bishop Raleigh as its president. Pieces were cast, written out and rehearsed to prepare for the opening of the Social Hall. In 1852, this historical hall was built. It is the identical assembly rooms so often mentioned in those days in the books of travelers, who have 51

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sojourned awhile in the Mormon Zion, where they j.rofessed to have had the hon ( r of dancing with the wives of Brigham Young and others of the Mormon chiefs, and admiringly saw " the Prophet " "trip the light fantastic toe." It was opened and dedicated for the performances of the Deseret Dramatic Association, and Bulwer's classical play of the " Lady of Lyons" was produced on the first night.

The company had now greatly strengthened and was enabled to cast first class plays. To the original members were added John T. Caine, David Mckenzie, David O. Calder, Bernard Snow, William C. Dunbar, Henry Maiben, Joseph M. Simmons, David Candland, (stage manager), William Broomhead and J. M. Bar- low ; to the ladies Mrs. Wheelock, Mrs. Tucker, Mrs. Bull, Mrs. John Hyde and Mrs. Cook.

In the opening play of the "Lady of Lyons," the gifted Ferguson played Claude Melnotte and Mrs. Wheelock, Pauline. In the great plays, the men parts were strongly filled. Bernard Snow, who was in that day styled the " Rocius" of the Rocky Mountains, played Othello ; Ferguson, Iago ; Snow, Damon, and Ferguson, Pythias. Virginius was also played, with Bernard Snow in that character. Phil. Margetts, in his line of comedy, farce and comic song, by this time, had estab- lished himself as a public favorite, in whose estimation he grew every season ; Dun- bar had created a type and style peculiarly his own, both in character parts and character singing ; while Henry Maiben was fast mounting the ladder of local fame in another line of comedy character parts and comic singing, to which was occasionally supplemented the role of professional dancer. David McKenzie had not as yet found his day of opportunities. Neither had John T. Caine's day come as a mere member of the Social Hall company ; nor indeed had that of Hiram B. Claw- son. Mrs. Wheelock rose to a local star magnitude, but she passed out of our sky and went to California, leaving scarcely a name in the remembrance of the living.

At the Social Hall, the company had a splendid orchestra, with Professor Ballo, director, and John M. Jones, the leading violin.

But the Utah war broke up the chain of dramatic performances in our city, and it may be said also the Deseret Dramatic Association itself for several years.

Our dramatic history was continued by Mr. Phil. Margetts organizing a com- pany, of which he was president, under the name of the Mechanic's Dramatic Association. The members of the company were Phil. Margetts, Harry Bowring, Henry McEwan, James A. Thompson, Joe Barker, John B. Kelly, John Cham- bers, Joseph Bull, Pat Lynch, William Wright, William Poulter and William Price ; the ladies were Mrs. Marion Bowring, Mrs. Bull, Mrs. McEwan, Elizabeth Tullidge and Ellen Bowring, with Father John Lyon, critic.

A large room was fitted up in the house of H. E. Bowring, with a stage and good scenery, painted by that excellent artist, William V. Morris, and the place of performance was called Bowring's Theatre,

It is worthy of note that this was the first place in Utah that bore the name of theatre.

In the performances of this little theatre, Mrs. Marion Bowring was leading lady, Mrs. Bull, walking lady, Mrs. McEwan, soubrette. Phil. played Othello, Beverly in the "Gamester," and Duke Aranza in the " Honeymoon ;" and he sus- tained those parts admirably, to the surprise of all his theatrical friends, who had

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cast him as the comedian par excellence. Henry McEwan played Iago to Phil's Othello, Stukely to his Gamester, and did it excellently well. In that line of characters, had McEwan remained on the stage, he would have made quite a pro- fessional mark. He had but one defect-that of voice. Thompson was the walk- ing gentleman, but it was in the farce of " Betsy Baker," that he made his chief mark, as Crummy, by which name he is known to this day among his intimate friends. Bowring played the Mock Duke to Phil's Duke ; Peter White in " Mr. and Mrs. Peter White " (played for the first time in Salt Lake City at Bowring's Theatre), and was a rare Bobby Trot to Phil's great Luke the Laborer ; and he was also the first Mouser (in this city) in " Betsy Baker." Mr. Joe Barker made quite a hit in old man parts. In the " Gamester" he played the old man part with great feeling ; so he did also Farmer Wakefield; and, as Lampedo, in the "Honey- moon," his part was a decided hit. Mr. Joseph Bull and Mrs. Bull sustained their appropriate parts ; the public will remember them as the Iago and Desdemona of the early period of our theatricals. Mrs. Marion Bowring was Juliana in the " Honeymoon ;" Mrs. Beverley in the " Gamester ;" Emelia in " Othello ;" and, afterwards, in the Salt Lake theatre, of which for years she was the leading lady of our stock company, she gave to Lyne's Pizzaro the best Elvira ever played by any lady of our stock company. Mrs. McEwan in her line of parts, shined as Jenny in " Luke the Laborer," and as Zamora, in the " Honeymoon."

It was these performances which led indirectly to the building of the Salt Lake Theatre and the re-organization of the Deseret Dramatic Association. Phil. waited on President Young and invited him to the performances, with all his family. naming the evening. Brigham said, " Why can't Heber and I come to- night ? What are you playing ?" The reply was, "Luke, the Laborer." " I'll come to-night, said the President, evidently designing to catch them as they were, without special preparation for his coming. He attended, was greatly pleased, and the next day Phil. presented him with ninety tickets for his and Heber's fam- ilies for that evening. The families of the two presidents of the Church came, including H. B. Clawson ; the play that night was " The Honeymoon," with Phil. as Duke Aranza, Bowring as the Mock Duke, and McEwan as Orlando. Speaking with theatrical swell becoming the occasion, the performance was a tre- mendous success. At the close Phil., from the stage, made a speech to the President, and Brigham, with his usual gallantry when pleased, in return, from the audience, made a speech to Phil. and his dramatic company.

Immediately after this the President told Hiram B. Clawson to organize the Deseret Dramatic Association, unite with it Phil's company, and said that he would build a great theatre, for, as he sagaciously observed, " the people must have amusements."

Such is the historic significance of Bowring's Theatre, and soon thereafter the Salt Lake Theatre rose as the grander symbol of the times.

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CHAPTER LXXXV.

BUILDING AND OPENING OF THE SALT LAKE THEATRE. THE FIRST PLAY. REMINISCENCES OF THE COMPANY. THEATRICAL CRITICISMS. THE EARLY STARS. T. A. LYNE. THE IRWINS. PAUNCEFORT. "YOU CAN'T PLAY ALEXANDER." JULIA DEAN HAYNE. JOHN T. CAINE'S BENEFIT. THE FIRST LOCAL PLAY PUT UPON THE SALT LAKE STAGE-" ELEANOR DE VERE." THE CROWNING DAYS OF THE THEATRE. THE WORLD'S STARS THAT HAVE VISITED ZION.

It was just at the outbreak of the civil war that the theatrical history proper of our city commenced. The " Utah War " was as a bustling memory of the past ; Camp Floyd was evacuated ; all in Zion was peace, though the nation was in civil war, in which neither Utah nor California had the honor of taking part.

It was in the year 1861, our citizens saw a colossal building in the process of erection, and it was known that Brigham Young designed to give to the Mormons a great theatre, which, after its erection, was popularly styled Brigham's theatre.

There were those among the heads of the community who would have rather seen the Temple rushing up; but our citizens, (who at that date were mixed, of Gentile and Mormon) needed the theatre more than the Temple : so thought Brigham Young, and his practical mind gave to our city one of the best theatres in America; and soon it was stocked with a company and furnished with appoint- ments that bore favorable comparison with the theatres of the East.

And Brigham Young was right. With the drama, the English civilization was born ; and though Brigham Young comprehended it not in a learned sense, his strong Saxon common sense perceived as by instinct the methods of his race ; and it is remarkable how an uneducated man (uneducated in the sense of the schools) could have so methodically worked, as to give his people a theatre and choral classes here simultaneously as he did in 1861.

The English common people were educated and their minds drawn out into art and philosophy not by the pulpit but the stage ; not by the Church, the cath- edral, or the temple, but the theatre and the concert hall; and as in England so also has it been in America. We enter the Holy of Holies to worship ; we go to the theatre to learn the everyday lessons of practical life and to study character for a knowledge of human nature; nor is it a little singular in this man, Brig- ham's life, that though he put on capstone of the Nauvoo Temple, he also at Nauvoo played the High Priest to our T. A. Lyne's Pizzaro, while Apostle Eras- tus Snow, then a brilliant young elder, played Alonzo. In that day Thomas A. Lyne, then in the prime of his dramatic power, was at Nauvoo giving perform- ances. Joseph Smith himself was highly endowed with a dramatic nature. His whole life was a drama-not a pulpit oration ; and his culmination was a solemn tragedy. And even in his Temple, the Prophet was a sacred dramatist, and not

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like unto a modern minister or a lecturer from college, and all his mysteries were sacred dramas-revealings in the Temple of the characters and action of the im- mortal life, as Shakespeare, the prophet of the Theatre, revealed at the Old Globe in London, the characters and actions of mortal life.

The Mormon theatre was conceived in Nauvoo in Joseph's day. It is as ortho- dox as the Temple. Thomas A. Lyne was Joseph's actor : an incident in his pro- fessional life of which this veteran personator of the characters of Shakespeare and other dramatic masters has often spoken with unction to the author. It was such a unique episode in his life to play Pizzaro in the city of the Saints at the request of the Prophet with Brigham performing the high priest of his play, that T. A. Lyne has cherished the circumstance as a sacred page in the book of reminis- cences of his professsonal career. Pizzaro was just such a play as Joseph would de- light in as a study for his people, the subject being the invasion, by the haughty iron-heeled Spaniard, of the ancient nation of Peru, closely akin to a Bouk of Mormon subject ; and Erastus Snow as the young Alonzo, a type of Spanish chiv- alry at its best temper, was a character to admire, while Brigham as the high priest holding the ancient temple and calling down fire from the sun-god, per- formed a part that the Mormons could sympathetically appreciate. The dramatic episode is pertinent as the play of Pizzaro was performed afterwards by T. A. Lyne in "Brigham's theatre " in Salt Lake City, with a very similar cast, as it was played by him in the Masonic Hall at Nauvoo before Joseph and his people.

It was at Nauvoo that Hiram B. Clawson became a regular member of the Lyne company. Hiram possessed the natural abilities of a good character actor, which thus early attracted him to the stage. He traveled professionally in Lyne's company, up the river and around, and was considered by both the management and the public as a decided hit in his character parts. Herein we find the pro- logue of Brigham's theatre in Salt Lake City, with Hiram B. Clawson, manager, and Lyne playing star parts, supported by a local company of Mormon elders and the daughters of the High Priest of bygone days.

Historically illustrated we may say that the Salt Lake Theatre rose as the monument of our Rocky Mountain civilization. In this respect it is worthy of reference to the Old Globe of London, which, when the English nation was emer- ging from the gorgeous barbarism of the feudal times, was, by the genius of a gal- axy of supreme minds, endowed with the dramatic voice of a new civilization.

The founders of this Territory had performed their wonderful exodus; they had laid the first strata of society in the Rocky Mountains ; they had peopled these valleys by immense emigrations ; our Territory had survived what was called the Utah war ; Camp Floyd was evacuated, and General Albert Sidney Johnson had resigned his character role as the conqueror of the Utah rebellion, and gone to play a principal part in the rebellion of the South. There were certainly the swell of heroism and the sonorous tones of a gorgeous barbarism in all this, but from the higher views of civilization, both the history and social conditions were only semi-barbaric. Though Utah society was made up of the elements of the superior races, and the people who constituted this new commonwealth had mi- grated from lands of high culture, yet society itself in these valleys was in its primi- tive state of formation. The element from the old countries needed a re-culture.

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The exterminations, emigrations, and the first settlings in the " Great American Desert " had returned it as clay to the hand of the potter, for a remoulding into forms snitable to its own civilization, while the native born of these valleys had merely the primitive fashioning of an Anglo-Saxon offspring, without any personal cultured remembrances brought from other lands. In short, in the early periods of the history of our Territory, all society here needed toning up with the impulses of a re-culture. President Brigham Young, as a colonist and society-founder, as we have said, realized this in his own way. But there were other men around him who realized it in what may be termed the professional sense of civilized society -the senses which have given birth to the poet, the musician, the painter, the actor, the architect, the inventor and the journalist, -- which at the birth of our present English civilization, made the Old Globe of Shakspeare's management as fame resounding as the court of Elizabeth, and Shakspeare's name more splendid than that of the great queen herself, and which in modern times have made the press the mightiest power of the age.

About the year 1860, those professional instincts around Brigham Young may have been named as embodied in Hiram B. Clawson, John T. Caine and David O. Calder. On his part David O. Calder had been prompting President Young to the organization of large philharmonic societies throughout the Territory; and un- der the patronage and by the financial support of the President of the Church. David O. Calder taught large classes of pupils in Brigham's choral free school; , while under Hiram B. Clawson and John T. Caine, the Deseret Dramatic Associ- ation, in 1861.2-3, grew into a first class theatrical stock company. The years 1861-2 saw the building and opening of the great Salt Lake Theatre, of which Julia Dean Hayne afterwards became queen. Its fame spread even to Europe ; and on his visit to our Zion, Hepworth Dixon was charmed to write upon Brigham Young's theatre several interesting pages of his book-New America. From the opening of that theatre, speaking in a professional sense, civilization in the Rocky Mountains received a fresh impulse. Brigham Young was the president of the as- sociation ; his daughters played upon the stage ; Mormon elders were the actors ; Mormon elders painted the scenes and constituted the orchestra ; the managers were Clawson and Caine ; and apostles, patriarchs, high priests and elders filled the parquette and the private boxes with their families. It is thus we must view the management of the Salt Lake Theatre under Clawson and Caine, to under- stand its import in the history of our Utah civilization.

The Salt Lake Theatre was opened to the public on Saturday evening, March 8th, 1862. The pieces were, " Pride of the Market," and "State Secrets."

But the ceremony of the dedication of the Theatre was the remarkable event of the opening. Indeed it is not only worthy to constitute a chapter of our local dramatic history, but of the general history of Salt Lake City itself, for there is nothing in the history of the English and American stage so unique in its object and sentiment.

Reserved seats were placed before the curtain for the First Presidency of the Church and a few others. At the appointed hour, these were occupied and Brig- ham Young, president of the Deseret Dramatic Association, called " the house "

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to order and delivered a brief introduction. The choristers of the occasion sang an opening hymn :

" Lo! on the mountain tops appearing,"

After which President Daniel H. Wells offered up the dedication prayer from which we cull the following characteristic passages :

* " In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and in the authority of the holy and eternal priesthood of Almighty God, we consecrate and dedicate this building, with its surroundings above and below and upon each side thereof, unto Thee, our Father and God. We dedicate the ground upon which it stands, and the foundation of the building, and the superstructure thereon, the side and the end walls, and the chimneys upon the tops thereof, and the flues within the walls, and the openings for ingress and egress ; and ask for thy blessing to rest upon them, that the materials used in the construction of the walls may cement together and grow stronger and stronger as time shall pass away. To this end we dedicate unto Thee, our Father, the stone, the adobes, the brick, the hewn stone and mortar of which they are composed, and all the mason-work thereof ; and all the timbers within and above and upon the walls, and the frame- work thereof for the support of the floors, the galleries, the stage, the side rooms, stairs and passages and entrances thereof and therefrom, for the support of the roof of the building and the towering dome.

* * And we dedicate the parquette, circles, galleries and rooms adjoining for the people, the orchestra, and the actors and performers ; the stage upon which we stand, and the green-room, and rooms adjoining above and round about for dressing rooms, for painting and other conveniences. * * All and every part of this building we consecrate and dedicate unto Thee, our Father, that it may be pure and holy unto the Lord our God, for a safe and righteous habitation for the assemblages of Thy people, for pastime, amusement and recreation ; for plays, theatrical performances, for lec- tures, conventions, or celebrations, or for whatever purpose it may be used for the benefit of Thy Saints. * Upon this edifice be pleased to let Thy bless- ing rest, that it may be preserved against accident or calamity by fire or flood, or hurricane, or the lurid lightning's flash, or earthquakes. May it forever stand as a monument of the skill, industry and improvement of those who have labored thereon, or in anywise contributed thereto, and of the enterprise and ability of Thy servant Brigham, who is the projector and builder thereof, and also as a mon- ument of the blessing and prosperity which Thou hast so eminently conferred upon Thy people since Thou didst bring them forth unto this land. And we pray Thee to bless this Dramatic Association, the actors and actresses, and all who shall perform upon this stage, O Lord, may they feel the quickening influence of Thy Holy Spirit, vivifying and strengthening their whole being, and enabling them to bring into requisition and activity all those energies and powers, mental and physi- cal, quick perceptions and memories necessary to the development and showing forth the parts, acts and performances assigned unto them to their highest sense of gratification or desire, and the satisfaction of the attending audience. *

And, O Lord, preserve forever this house pure and holy for the habitation of thy people. Suffer no evil or wicked influences to predominate or prevail within these walls, neither disorder, drunkenness, debauchery or licentiousness of any sort

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or kind ; but rather than this, sooner than it should pass into the hands or con- trol of the wicked or ungodly, let it utterly perish and crumble to atoms ; let it be as though it had not been, an utter waste, each and every part returning to its natural element ; but may order, virtue, cleanliness, sobriety and excellence ob- tain and hold fast possession herein, the righteous possess it, and ' Holiness to the Lord' be forever inscribed therein '1 * *

After the dedicatory prayer Mr. William C. Dunbar, assisted by the choir and accompanied by the orchestra, sang the " Star Spangled Banner."

President Young next addressed the audience and the Deseret Dramatic As- sociation relative to his object in building the theatre, and the mission of the drama, in which address he aptly said :

" The Lord looked upon the children of men as they were, saw their deeds and understood them ; and so should the Saints understand who was in the world and learn to choose the good and eschew the evil. It was not to learn evil ; but to know the duplicity and falsehood of false men, guard against the inroads of vice, and to pursue the undeviating course of rectitude and virtue, that invariably lead to happiness and honor. * Brother Wells has prayed that this building might crumble to the dust and pass away as if it had never been, sooner than it should pass into the hands of the wicked or be corrupted and polluted, and to that I say, Amen."

In closing, the President made an impressive invocation in behalf of the dra- matic company and the audiences which should assemble to witness their perform- ances. Heber C. Kimball and John Taylor followed in brief addresses in conso- nance with the dedication.

The Deseret Dramatic Association then gave their opening performance to the public.

Thus it will be seen that this theatre was dedicated very much after the manner that the high priests of the Mormon Church would have dedicated one of their temples; and though probably Brigham Young had, at that time, never heard the text of the play of " Hamlet " in all his life, he described the object of the drama, as it was designed by him for the Salt Lake Theatre, very much like the spirit and exposition of Hamlet to the players :

" The purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 't were the mirror up to Nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."

The Salt Lake Theatre, in fact, at the onset was elevated to the caste of a dramatic temple, and made a high school to the public for the study of human nature, which was the very object of all the plays of our Solomon of the Anglo- Saxon stage. Not in the whole history of the stage, ancient or modern, was ever a theatre before thus endowed as a sacred dramatic temple for the people. Truc Shakspeare and the rest of the great dramatic composers, with Garrick, the Kem- bles, the Keans, Macready, Booth, Forrest, and others of their illustrious class, in their imperial dignity of character, and in the matchless splendor of their genius, before whose bright constellation the galaxy of the pulpit have bowed in humility-have affirmed that the Theatre of their designing is a Temple for the people. Hereafter perchance it may be regarded as one of the "strange things"

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of dramatic history that Brigham Young, a man of no art culture beyond that which was self-evolved, but the high priest of a despised church, should have so lifted the theatre to the conception of the great high priests of the stage; and, if "Brigham's Theatre " has fallen from its pinnacle, we shall not debit the fall to him, nor his counsellor, whose dedicatory prayer is before our eyes.

During the first season there were performed of the minor and domestic dramas, "Pride of the Market," " Serious family," " Porter's Knot," " Lavator the Physiognomist," " The Charcoal Burner" (a melo-drama), and Charles Mathews' comedy-" Used Up," with farces : "Sarah's Young Man," " An Ob- ject of Interest," " Paddy Miles' Boy," "To Oblige Benson," " Pleasant Neigh- bor," " Love in Livery," " Betsy Baker," and, on the last night of the season, a high class play-" Love's Sacrifice," and the farce " The Widow's Victim."

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 96

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194