--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Smith, Joseph F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 5 published: 1910-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Smith, Joseph F., "Editor’s Table: Clean Dramatic Amusements," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 5 (March 1910): 458–459.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera135unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera135unse start_page: 458 end_page: 459 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera135unse publication_year: 1910 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editor’s Table: Clean Dramatic Amusements Editor's Table. Clean Dramatic Amusements. Amusements people will have. It is needful and right that these should be provided. Giving the people proper dramatic entertainment was an early desire of President Brigham Young. This idea was at the basis of the building of the Salt Lake Theatre, a playhouse many years in advance of the community, when it was first erected. He encouraged dramatic art among the people, and was ambitious to make the stage a means of social uplift and in- tellectual development. Like dancing, which he and the author- ities of the Church after him permitted, the drama was to be a means of betterment for the person through recreation, entertain- ment and amusement. It was to be clean and elevating, the — theatre a place where you could go for high class enjoyment, and even where you could ask the blessings of the Lord upon what you learned and thought and saw. "Those who cannot serve God with a pure heart in the dance, should not dance," said President Young on one occasion. Not with decent people, at least. Then again: "If you wish to dance, dance, and you are just as much prepared for a prayer meeting after dancing as ever you were, if you are Saints." These words apply also to the theatre, and, in fact, to all our amusements. When we seek recreation anywhere it should be in this spirit, — not alone in dances, summer outings, and private or public parties, but also in the theatre. In order, however, to maintain this spirit in our social and amusement circles, choice of our associates, to some extent, and a guarding of our actions, in a degree, are needful and very import- EDITOR'S TABLE. 459 ant. This is quite as true of the theatre. There is as much need of our choosing plays as of choosing books, friends, and asso- ciates. If one accept an invitation to a party, or a home even- ing, or a dinner, one must first know from whom the invitation comes, and if it turn out that the source is low and infamous, the society coarse, and the food and drinks unfit, one must, in justice to his character and physical welfare, refuse the entertainment. Equally so with the theatre. There is as much need to exercise good taste in choosing matter for our entertainment in the drama, as in choosing honorable society and pure food. It must be said with regret that much of the entertainment offered to us and our chil- dren on the stage and in the amusement hall, these days, is mor- ally and intellectually unfit. What was recently said at Denver, in a sermon by Dr. Vos- burg, applies with force in Salt Lake City, and perhaps in the western cities and settlements generally. He spoke on the "Undressed Drama," and in the course of a scathing sermon said: It is an undeniable fact that a large proportion of the plays offered at the theatres today are intellectually imbecile and morally degrading. Just as high toned moral and spiritual teaching creates better citizens,does the undressed drama make worse citizens, and so become the logical feeder of the red light district. It is a curse to civil- ization, an enemy of the home and of mankind. The Denver News agrees with him. and declares that he does not overstate the case, for a large part of the plays which are offered today are "hurrahs for the tenderloin, glorifications for the scarlet woman, proclamations that dramatic art depends upon an absence of decency, and as nearly as possible an absence of clothes." The drama of the day and the prevailing moving picture and vaudeville shows, it may be added, are as untrue to life as they are indecent. "They picture the dive as the home of wit, instead of being the abiding place of dullness." They paint "happiness growing from the soil that nourishes half our suicides, and defy not only every law of decency, but every fact of life — and indeed to do the one they must do the other." The managers and players seem to have forgotten that decency pays, or else public teste is so low and degraded that this