Reminiscences of the Salt Lake Theatre

Reminiscences of the Salt Lake Theatre Part II— My First Shakespeare Play: Macbeth BY ALFRED LAM BOURNE It is felt as a bit of subtle flattery when one is asked to bring back from the past aught concerning one's self, or of others as seen through himself. Twice in our lives we listen to far-away voices — those that come from the Land-of-That-Which-Is-To-Be, and those that come from the Land-of-That-Which-Has-been. Pardon then, my friend, a slight touch of egotism in that which I may tell about the now historic play house. In complying with your request I cannot separate the theatre from my own lifethought. Look through my eyes, then, you must, think through my brain, you shall. Afterwards you may swing as wide a circle of thought around my vision as you will. In my mind's eye, I do not see the play house as it now is, overlooked by buildings taller than itself, but as the building was when it dominated its locality. How calmly imposing, how grandly massive it then appeared ! For many blocks one could then see the theatre, dark in the twilight, or its walls white in the sun and moonlight. I for one could not go from home to the playhouse or

REMINISCENCES OF SALT LAKE THEATER 697 reverse the process without passing through ami inhaling the odor of the artemesia and the sunflower. It is in my mind with the thought of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Bulwer, Goldsmith and the Bard of Avon. But how can I bring back the times? How suggesl the indefinable something, the pleasure, the pain, the semi-solitude, the isolation? Mow can I recall the humorous earnestness, the fine or roughness of fibre, the laughing or grim determination, the pathetic side of pioneer life? \ et it is all mixed up with my memories of the theatre. Swing a circle around this playhouse, I mean as it was in the early days, and how unique it was! It is well nigh impossible I believe for the younger generation to place themselves in the attitude of the pioneers. Those who built, I mean, those who looked upon the plays and those who acted upon the stage of the theatre. The early settlers of New England would have looked upon it as an institution of the devil, and yet it was built by religious pioneers. It was erected by a people who had come over seas and plains and mountains; yes, people who had come through a country infested with savages, and into what had been formerly described as a region where the white man could not dwell, and this to establish a new commonwealth in the western wilderness. There was a peculiar sympathy between those who acted upon the stage and those who composed the audience. The greater number of actors and actresses who belonged to the regular stock company had crossed the plains and mountains in OX or mule trains, more than one I believe, in a hand-cart company. Many of the men who watched the play at night had done the roughest of pioneer work during the day. Perhaps one had "grubbed sage" for an order for a theatre ticket— perhaps another had toiled in the fields, irrigated an orchard, or dug upon a water ditch. Perhaps one had helped at building a saw-mill or at blazing a trail up 'to the mountain pines, or he might havQ worked on a canyon road, or brought down a load of logs. It may be that he had stood for many hours, rain or shine, in the wood-yard then opposite the play house until he had sold that load of firewood, and a part of the pay which he received he might have used for his theatre admission fee. Yes there was a strange bond of friendship existing between the stage and the

ON THE ROAD TO THE THEATRE — A PIONEER HOME, BY G. M. OTTINGER. auditorium. All were friends. They met in daily labor, they met in the dance, they would bear their testimony in the same meetinghouse. The man who guffawed at the comedian, might talk with him on the morrow whilst he chiselled granite in the Temple Square. Another who watched the tragedian might visit him in the capacity of teacher during the coming week. Another who sympathized with the hero and heroine might soon meet them in social intercourse, and they might tell how they gathered in the same company, recalling the crossing of the plains in the same ox-train, or the seas in the same vessel. On the morrow, perhaps, all would look with like emotions on the great mountains, and might take a like interest in the planting of trees and vines, the setting out of flowers. All were alike interested in bringing about that miracle — when the desert should blossom as the rose. That was the strong time of the legitimate drama. Even the people of the west became connoisseurs. People would go not to see a new play, but to see a new actor in an old part. How many actors did I see in the play of Hamlet? Pauncefort, Lyne, Adams, Kean, McCullough, Davenport, Miss Evans, Chaplin, Barrett, Booth — that is not half. But now I recall my first witnessing of the tragedy of Macbeth. And how many times did I see the play of Macbeth? But never mind ! The announcement of the tragedy used to be posted in the Tithing Office and on the Eagle Gates, and on the door of the Church blacksmith shop, too. No actor will again see this quaint

THE EAGfcE GATE IN EARLY DAYS — IIV MAIIONKI M. YOUNG. old shop — the gray adobe wall, the wheel and the burdock-edged flume reflected in the mountain stream. No actor will read the announcement of his own appearance posted on the massive door. It was strange, that rustic scene— so near so nearly a perfect playhouse. Many an actor in those days walked at the twilight and sat on the embankment to "pull himself together," as stage people say, ere he went to the theatre to take his part for the night. Yes, many an actor and actress of world-wide fame -at by that rustic mill and quaint old shop and listened to the voice of the "Noisy Water," as it hurried by. Ah' well may one say it was all unique. On that night on which I first attended a Shakespearean play, the sound of the cracking of whips and the commands of "Gee" and "Haw," to the cattle that had dragged an emigrant wagon, were hardly out of my ears. From the mouth of the canyon I had seen a white oblong building above an oasis of crreen, it was the playhouse, and above it. from that point of view, and oil that -lay. was a strange, huge curve, and this was the just erected central arch of the big new Tabernacle. So my memories of Macbeth are mingled with my first view of the city and valley.

«fc-,-w T1IE CHURCH BLACKSMITH SHOP, BY JAMES T. II AK WOOD. On that Saturday night, during the performance of the tragedy, a terrific storm burst over the Valley of the Great Salt- Lake, the lightning quivered, the peals of thunder were like the crack of doom, then reverberations penetrated into every recess of the half-filled theatre. At times hardly could one hear Mr. Pauncefort as the Thane of Glamis and of Cawdor, he who should be "King hereafter," when he uttered the words : "Is this a dagger which I see before rac, The handle toward my hand?" There was no need for the property man to produce the artificial thunder ; Nature was supplying the actual in a far more effective manner. "Twas a rough night, My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it." Yes, that is true ; the theatre fairly shook. As Lenox told of the horses of King Duncan ; as the ghost of Banquo entered the banquet hall ; when Hecate and the witches met, and as the apparitions rose above the rim of the infernal Cauldron, still the great storm went on. The actors were nervous and the audience

REMINISCENCES OF SALT LAKE THEATER 701 too. Through the upper windows above the stage — through the sky-lights of the scene-painter's gallery, came such blinding (lashes of light as dimmed for the time the illumination of the coal-oil lamps. It was a performance to remember. But this is something that I wish to tell : when the witches sang : "To the echo, to the echo, to the echo Of some hollow hill." They were witches indeed: they were witches on that Saturday night, but on Sunday they were the Tabernacle Choir, the wives and daughters of the Pioneers. I remember that they sang: "Be lifted up! Be lifted up, all ye Gates!" And also "How beautiful upon the mountains Are the feet of him who bringeth glad tidings." "Truth is stranger than fiction ;" it is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous." Yes that is surely so. As I returned home on that night from the playhouse,there might have been read — posted on the Eagle Gate — and by the light of the storm-cleared moon, a notice of reward, issued by the Governor of the Territory for the apprehension of a murderer. After looking at the play of Macbeth it wrought a peculiar effect upon the mind of the boy who stopped to read it. I remember a few facts that make me sigh or smile at the present time and which give some idea of the difference of theatricals in those days from what they are now. "Your city has changed its character." These words were spoken by the English actor Couldock. He stepped down on his farewell tour of the West, not from a mail-coach as he had formerly done, but from the railway carriage ; not at the old hostelry, on East Temple Street, but at the railway station. Couldock missed, and lamented for, the clear mountain waters that once rippled along through our streets; the quiet gardens and the orchards, and with these lacking, he also missed a certain quality in the people themselves — the simplicity and geniality that they possessed in the earlier days. It is true that he who played so well the part of Macbeth, died the proprietor of a Japanese tea-garden. It is true that I

*■? ^Msr ;< ■M&m-^- I l' £^3 3 V'k<" -/S^P^^" ^f^/ <- /,,.' '■, ?7 ,(1.1 THE RUSTIC MILL, BY JAMES T. IIARWOOD. liavc read, cut in the marble above the one who played Lady Macbeth, the words : "Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages, Thou thy worldly task has done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages." It is true that I afterwards became acquainted with the terrible Hecate ; that he handed me out, through an opening in the upper half of the Tithing Office basement door, so many pounds of meat — beef or mutton ; it is also true that I afterwards talked with Macduff and Banquo about the allowancing of potatoes, and that "Lady Macbeth's gentlewoman" once advised me to hurry with my tin pail to the Tithing Office Produce store as she believed that the officials there were distributing a cask of molasses. And so I recall "Shakespeare's Sublime Tragedy, Macbeth; King of Scotland."