From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #584 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, January 23 2002 Volume 01 : Number 584 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:58:46 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Ayn RAND, _Atlas Shrugged_ [MOD: And now--having just posted my moderator proclamations on the Ayn Rand thread--I see this post come in, which both (a) asks for more discussion of the political and doctrinal side of Ayn Rand, and (b) has an undeniable Mormon tie-in. Sigh... What I'd like to ask is that some of you who *don't* find Ayn Rand terribly Korihor-ish (it sounds like Rob Lauer is an ideal candidate for this, but others could certainly take a stab at this as well) carefully take a stab at answering Eric's question. We'll proceed cautiously from there. Please, everyone, let's not turn this into a change to start position-izing (what an ugly coinage). I also give fair warning that in this discussion, I will allow very little critical response to other List members' comments. Feel free to share your own thoughts; be very cautious about arguing with others.] D. Michael : >If she constructed a system of philosophy (Objectivism) whose >components she believed were self-consistently dependent on each >other, >how valid is it for me to pick and choose what I like and discard the >rest? Why is that invalid? We do that all the time. I'm a big fan of the = French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. But he didn't like theatre, which I = adore. How do I deal with that? Ignore. He's right on some issues, = wrong on others. As am I, probably. No big deal. Pick and choose away. Here's my question, though, for all y'all that like Ayn Rand: How are her = ideas different from Korihor's? I really want to know. I've started the = Fountainhead many times, can't wade through it. Far as I can tell, = though, her Objectivism is Korihor 101. I speak in ignorance, of course; = I despise her politics and find her sex scenes ludicrous, and haven't = studied her at all. And I'm working on a play titled Korihor (if you = write a play called Gadianton, you're pretty much obligated to call the = sequel Korihor, n'est pas?) and I've got a character who reads Ayn Rand a = lot and who of course turns out to be my motivational speaker/villain. So = talk me out of it. (I know, I know, I should read her stuff first. Man, = it's turgid freaking prose.) Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 10:59:44 -0700 From: "Paris Anderson" Subject: Re: [AML] Life in Mormon Culture I echo what Todd Petersen had to say: > I've been lurking around, listening to this Mormon Culture discussion > with supreme interest. I recognize that lots of people love the church > and its culture. I think that it's important to have such feelings. I really, really admire the courage of Todd, Stephen, Kathy (both Tyner and Fowkes). So I guess, I'll go ahead and piss in the wind and hope nothing comes back at me. My relationship with the Church and with Mormon culture has been very tense throughout my life. I can't remember very well, but it seems I've never felt like I was a part of the Church (Maybe when I went to a singles ward in the mid-80's). Anyway, I had this accident back when I was 14 and it really did a number on me. This happened in Argentina and my father was a mission president there. I was in a coma for a while then I had to learn to walk and talk again. I still write with my left hand. I was born right handed. And I still have trouble reading. When I came back to the States--man, it was wierd. Kinda surrealistic. I went to all the Church functions, ward parties, MIA--but I always felt like I was on the outside, like I didn't belong. Sometimes, it seemed like I wasn't even there. I remember thinking I couldn't be a good Mormon, because I couldn't participate in any youth activities. I couldn't go on hikes, dance or play football--hell, I couldn't even throw a frisbee. So my teenage years were kind of neutral. Even through I lived in Provo, Utah, I wasn't really exposed to Mormon Culture. I just wasn't a part of it. I went on a mission. I guess that was my first taste of Mormon Culture. I was sent to Mexico, but spent 7 month in Los Angeles waiting for a visa (I thought God's Army was so predicatable and so ordinary--which, I guess, is what made it revolutionary). Then, I went to Mexico--I can't remember much at all there. I got sick after about eight months and came home early. Twenty years have passed since then and sometimes I look at what I acomplished and what it cost me to do it, and I really think it was a mistake for me to have gone. But . . . what's done is done and there's no way to repent of something that didn't involve sin. So I guess I'm stuck. After my mission bad things started to happen. That's when Post Traumatic Stress got bad. I had horrible, incapacitating flashback of Argentina every few days. Sometimes the body of mine was numb for a couple of days and my mind lived there in Argentina. Sometimes I was a little bit dangerous, and when it was really bad I was suicidal. And this is the part that confuses me--that is the time when I felt closest to the Church. That was in the singles ward. But at the same time those were the years that caused me to become ambivalent about Church membership. I think I felt closer to the Church because I really, really, really counted down the days to that one day of peace. I wanted so bad for God to make everything all better. I became ambivalent because I went to various Bishops and described what was happening to me and asked for help. All except once I was turned away. That one time I was given a box of groceries. I even went to an LDS Social Services office and asked. They turned me away too. It kind of hurt when all that happened. And it gave me the impression, as far as the Church was concerned, my life really didn't matter. When that 9-11 thing happened, the Church was compassionate and expressed sorrow and sympathy. Church leaders even attended funerals for some of the people who died on the jets. I was absolutely infuriated, I wrote into Church headquarters saying how I thought it was so grotesquely unfair, unchristian and ungodly that they would eulogize a few victims of terrorisms that were traveling croos-country, while ignoring another who was scarred by terrorism, while on the Church's errand, and who had repeatedly asked for help. Church headquarters forewarded that letter to my Bishop with a letter of their own telling him to take care of the problem. The Bishop called me in to his office and read me the letters, and asked me if I needed anything and asked how the kids are and how my wife is and la la la and if I needed any help. I told him I wasn't asking for anything. Then he said, "well, we're good enough friends that if you ever did need anything, you would ask, right?" I said no, and I walked out. I guess that's part of Mormon culture, too. Maybe people who assume people born in the Church are pretty much all the same or have the same experience with the Church need to think again. Paris Anderson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 02:37:07 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] SLAC, "Cabbies, Cowboys, and the Tree of the Weeping Virgin"= (Deseret News) Deseret News Sunday, January 20, 2002 'Cabbies' includes 10 original plays Here are brief synopses of the 10 original plays being staged in Salt Lake Acting Company's "Cabbies, Cowboys and the Tree of the Weeping Virgin." "Catch and Release," by David Kranes, features Donald Glover in a sequel to Kranes' acclaimed "Salmon Run," which premiered several years ago at SLAC. The brief follow-up focuses on a man named Patrick, who addresses the audience while donning a trout suit =97 ultimately enabling him to live the experience of a fish being caught and released. Directed by David Kirk Chambers. "The Dome," by Mike Dorrell, featuring Colleen Baum as Peg, 19th century Irish midwife and Mormon convert. Directed by Valerie Kittel. "Eager," by Mary Dickson, features Marylynn Alldredge as a young LDS woman whose departing missionary boyfriend has spread rumors about her. Directed by Mike Dorrell. "The Gold Lunch," by Ron Carlson. This features Geoff Hansen in a satire based on the premise that lunching with one's ex-wife has become a new Olympic event. Directed by David Kirk Chambers. "Incident at Thompson's Slough," by David Lee, features Brenda Sue Cowley and Michael Byron Boswell in what is described as "an inspired comic account of an accident in a small rural Utah town, in which more than a few reputations also end up in the ditch." Directed by Nancy Borgenicht. "The Stigmata Incident," by Charlotte McQuinn Freeman, has local actress Jeanette Puhich as a Ph.D candidate trying to make sense of her own sudden reversion to Catholicism when confronted by a weeping representation of the Virgin of Guadalupe on a tree in a Salt Lake urban park. Directed by Mike Dorrell. "To Ralph@Philly.com From Jonah@SLC.com," co-authored by David and Joe Borgenicht =97 a sort of "Love Letters" approach to a series of e-mails between two Jewish brothers, one who left Utah to live in Philadelphia and the other still in Salt Lake City. Directed by David Mong. "The Unsettling," by Pete Rock, features Taylor Reed in what is described as "a mysterious and chilling monologue" about a young LDS girl drawn into a hallucinogenic world of meth and possible madness. Directed by David Mong. "Water Lilies," by Julie Jensen, has Brenda Sue Cowley and Jeanette Puhich as Betty and Bella, two sisters who've had a long career as synchronized swimmers. Betty is determined to capture Olympic gold with their daring Double Mandible maneuver. Bella would just as soon move to the desert, far removed from any water. Directed by Keven Myhre. "Where To?" by Jeff Metcalf, features Kurt Proctor as a sardonic Salt Lake cab driver who shares with his unwitting fares his pointed and witheringly funny observations about life along with Wasatch Front. Directed by Nancy Borgenicht. The five plays that will be included in the commemorative book but not performed are Wendy Hammond's "The Story of Thaddeus Dopp," Sally Grave Jackson's "Circling Back," Russell Lees' "West Second South," J.T. Rogers' "Seven Lies of an Unbeliever" and Terry Tempest Williams' "The Promise of Parrots." =A9 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company (Excert from another article by Ivan Lincoln in the same issue of the Deseret News on the plays.) Colleen Baum, seen most recently in Plan-B's "The Laramie Project" and The Emily Company's "Pride's Crossing," is the featured performer in "The Dome," which Mike Dorrell, a Welsh immigrant to Utah, wrote after researching his wife's ancestral history. Dorrell noted that his wife's great-grandmother joined the LDS Church in Wales and was among the early pioneers who crossed the Atlantic to move here. While the woman in the play is more or less a composite of women from that era, "it's based essentially on her and comes out of that milieu. The Welsh were particularly strong among the early converts here. Most of the unmarried women became school teachers or midwives." Peg, the character played by Baum, is a midwife. Her monologue =97 which will be the final play of the evening =97 is centered around an architect who promises to design a domed churchhouse in what eventually evolved into Salt Lake City's historic Marmalade Hill district. The building that inspired Dorrell's play is Salt Lake Acting Company's current home =97 an old church ward house built in 1890. Dorrell explained that his play's references to the building are fictional but the central character's historical background is based on actual people. Baum said the piece that Dorrell wrote "reminds me of my own grandmother. A lot of the others involved in the project have said that Peg reminds them of their ancestors, too =97 of who they were and what they went through to get here. "Peg is a reminder of why we have such a special state. She's realist and very independent, but she also has a wicked =97 but loving =97 sense of Irish humor. This was one of the first scripts I read, and it was the only one I really wanted to do." =A9 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company _________________________________________________________________ Join the world=92s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.=20 http://www.hotmail.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:27:54 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: [AML] New Yorker article I too was glad to see the long (and long-awaited) New Yorker article on the LDS Church. It could have been a lot worse. However, I am still struggling to understand President Hinckley's media strategy of playing dumb about Mormon theology, which he also did in the 1997 Time cover story and other places. I wonder if he just thinks nothing good can come of talking about our defining, distinctive "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become" outlook. (At the Ensign, I was told that's the same reason the Church doesn't deal with polygamy--"nothing good can come of it.") For me, without that distinctive theology, Mormonism would just be another terrestrial Christian sect. Yet, on the other hand I was stunned that President Hinckley brought up what appears to be the Adam-God theory in a favorable way, or at least not discounting it. I don't think any of the Church spokesmen quoted in the article handled the difficult questions very directly or effectively, although they didn't drop balls outright. I hope if any Mormon fiction or memoir breaks into the mainstream, it will be more effective at portraying the full depth of Mormonism, not just the PR-conscious surface. Chris Bigelow - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:06:05 -0700 From: "Amy Chamberlain" Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Satire Enrichment Night Allows Women to Feast on Gospel, Brownies Palm Pilot Games Save Area Man's Sanity at Stake Conference Hard-Working Missionary In Brazil Now Swears with Native Proficiency Covey Launches new 30" x 30" "Stake President" Planner Area Woman Chastises Ward During Testimony Meeting New, Informal Sunday School Forms Around Ward Gossip in Library Amy P.S. Sure, Chris, I'll collaborate. Sounds like fun. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:52:52 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: RE: [AML] Life in Mormon Culture <<>> I agree with this statement because Mormonism is trying to appeal to everybody and be translatable all over the world. It has to draw in old people from ancient generations as well as people from vastly different cultures. It has to offer no obstacles to people feeling the Spirit and joining the Church (or renewing their commitment). It has to be as easily reproduced and as easy to keep consistent from outlet to outlet as the Big Mac. On the other hand, it has to offer milk before meat. It is truly lowest common denominator stuff. It serves a purpose, but blecch. Chris Bigelow - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 19:43:24 -0500 From: "Tracie Laulusa" Subject: Re: [AML] Public and Private Mormon Lit I don't think I'm getting your definition of public vs private. Could you start over and explain it to me? I think I understand what you are saying about RN's book. If she were writing for the national market, intending to be read by non-mormons, her books would sound preachy because they assume knowledge of (and agreement with ?) the culture and doctrine. Since she's not writing for a national market, but strictly LDS this isn't really an issue with her books. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'public LDS'. What would make it private LDS? In reading your responses I thought of Chiam Potok. I never felt that his books were preachy. But perhaps that is because, at least in my recollection, every one of his main characters had questions and issues with the Jewish religion and culture. Since they had questions there was no feeling that the reader should be in total agreement with anything. Does that sound right? Tracie Laulusa - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Melissa Proffitt" Proselytizing is the wrong word, but at the time I couldn't remember a better one. It implies that the objective of the book is to preach the gospel to those not yet in possession of it. A better word might be "testimonial" or "affirmation." Nunes writes about Mormons, for Mormons--more specifically, for a particular segment of the LDS population. [snip] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:29:05 -0700 From: "Clark Draney" Subject: RE: [AML] Fodder for Satire >>>Does anyone remember Al Jaffee (sp?) in Mad magazine? Maybe he's still there. My favorite gags of his over the years have been the elaborate devices and solutions he cooks up for the problems and inconveniences of modern life (I remember stuff about solving parking problems and how to deal with smokers). He brought in just the right tone of progress mixed with goofiness. I just find things like food storage software so quintessentially Mormon, it makes me laugh. Chris Bigelow>>> Jaffee was undoubtedly taking off from Rube Goldberg's earlier cartoons in which elaborate machines performed the simplest of tasks. Rotating food storage is not that simple, but I think that A LOT of what we do in the church is very Rube Goldbergian. (And THAT seems to be very good fodder, as many of you are clearly working out, for Mormon fiction.) If you don't know who Rube Goldberg was, see: http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ Clark D. "Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards." -Robert A. Heinlein _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 21:25:13 -0700 From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [AML] Re: J. Scott BRONSON, _Stones_ (Pt. 1) 84,96-97,119-120,126-127,163-164,167-168,170-171,175-176,200-201,211-212,227= - -228,236-237,247-248,252-253,282-283,285-286,291-292,301-302,304-305,312-313= ,324-327,331-332,339-340,353-354,356-357,365-366,373-374,376-377,380-381,383= - -384,387-388,395-396,399-400,405-406,438-439,459-460,462-465,470-471,475-476= ,479-480,482-483,520-521,532-533,536-539,541-544,548-549,553-554,557-558,560= - -561,569-570,574-575,582-583 X-Juno-Att: 0 X-Juno-RefParts: 0 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Sender: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aml-list [MOD: For length purposes, I have split this into two posts.] [Some time ago I promised a "Response to the Critics." I know that this has been unawaited and unanticipated, but I have done it anyway. It's very long and maybe a couple of you will get about half way through before giving up. In fact, it has turned out to be more of a benefit to me I'm sure than it will be to anyone else. As I said before, I think a List like this is an ideal forum for this type of thing. What follows is a look into one playwright's head. Here's an opportunity to see what he was thinking -- or thought he was thinking -- when he wrote these plays.=20 The plays referred to are two one-acts, Altars and Tombs, which live together under the title, Stones. All of my comments will appear in brackets.] From: Darlene Young To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 09:40:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [AML] Scott BRONSON, _Stones_ (Review) One of the songs in Marvin Payne's Planemaker changed my impressions of what being godlike really means: "Then we are fierce and holy; then we are wild and wise." [Well, I had really high hopes for this review when it started out with a quote from one of the greatest poets of our community -- any community really. And the phrase Darlene used: "changed my impressions of what being godlike really means," well, I confess that my goal is to change some impressions. I seriously want to open doors to new ways of thinking about things that we think we already know or understand. I was greatly gratified that that was where Darlene began her comments.] Fierce and wild! What a contrast to the Mormon culture I had been raised in!=20 [Me too. I was a bit shocked that these words were being applied to my plays. Fierce and wild never occurred to me as the principle concepts of my work. Not even secondary or tertiary. But as I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Yes; I agree, there is something fierce and wild about the work.] Could it be that God has something else in mind for me--for all of us--than just flowered dresses and warm fuzzy stories in sacrament meeting? I think as a culture we are afraid of strong things, power, fierceness. Too many times we choose the safe, the warm (lukewarm), the sweet and the mild--after all, Christ taught us to be mild, didn't he?=20 But he also taught us the keys of power! The early church and the early restored church are full of stories of power, of fierceness and strength. It is something to be mourned that our arts have not been able to reflect the true potential of souls for power and fierceness that I believe God intends for us. [Frankly, I am still somewhat amazed that "Stones" prompted such a passionate response.] Too often our arts are mild and therefore lose potential to move us to higher levels. [This is how I felt about "Savior of the World" and was so glad that for one viewer at least, I had accomplished one of my goals; to tell a story about Jesus that uplifts at the same time that it makes him more accessible on a human level. I just knew that it was possible to have Jesus onstage, feeling and thinking and reacting to things with realistic manners and attitudes, and yet, still have him come across as a divine being -- with the energy of a god. Jesus as a dynamic being.] What a refreshing experience it was to me, then, to see Scott Bronson's Stones last night. Here is a work full of pain--refining pain, [Seems to be a theme in all my work. Possibly it is the reason that Scott Card's book, The Worthing Chronicle, is such a favorite of mine.=20 And why D&C section 122 is also a favorite bit of reading for me. I truly do believe in the refining power of pain. And yet, making it a theme in my work is not a conscious choice at all. Somehow, though, it seems to show up.] pain that forced me to assess my worldview and become a different person because of the experience. [That just makes a writer's day...] This is true art--art that causes growth through experience, not didacticism. [... as does that.] I'm still pondering the complexity of this work [About the complexity. Again, it's not a conscious choice to be complex. The goal is to be as REAL as possible. If I can do that, then the complexity will follow ... if the actors and directors assigned to the work can find it. Listen, I was an actor of plays before I was a writer of plays and I think that has an enormous effect on the way I write. As I told my actors when we were in rehearsals for Stones, when I'm writing a play, I'm acting all the roles, jumping back and forth (that really should be "forth and back" don't you think?) from the head of one character to the head of another and so on until none of the characters in the room can think of anything to say, at which point I write "pause." Then, if I find that all of the characters truly have said everything they came to say, I write "blackout." A little story about my first play. This happened at BYU in 1984. The play was Heartlight (taken from a song by Kenny Loggins, NOT Neil Diamond). The first rehearsal of the play that I attended occurred on a Saturday. The plan was to have a run-through in the morning, have notes, break for lunch and have another run-through in the afternoon. After the first run-through Dr. Whitman (Charles, the director of the play) gave his notes then asked me if I had any notes to give. Dr. Whitman was a great champion of new playwrights. He worked very hard on making sure that they had good experiences with their first productions. I gave notes for forty-five minutes. Several times during the course of that Dr. Whitman or one of the actors would stop me to say something like, "But that seems to contradict what is indicated in the script," to which I would reply something like, "Unless you consider this that happens earlier/later in the script." To this Dr. Whitman, or the actor in question would say, "You want BOTH/ALL of those things portrayed?" "Yes. Of course," I would say. At the end of those forty-five minutes Dr. Whitman said, "You realize what you're asking these people to do, don't you?" "Yes," I said. "I'm asking them to be real people." Dr. Whitman then canceled the afternoon rehearsal in favor of allowing the actors to go home and consider the daunting task before them. They did pretty well considering that they were -- most of them -- inexperienced actors who had never done an original script.] and I know that more insight will come to me over time, but I had to speak now so that I can get more Listers to go and support this great work. People, this kind of thing directly affects all of us as artists.=20 Any time one of us is able to raise the standard of LDS art, he is benefitting all of us. And Scott is doing what Richard Dutcher spoke of doing: educating an audience. [Yes, this is always a desired outcome, however, my primary intent toward the audience is first to give them an emotional experience. I want to move the audience. I think more often than not people effect change in their lives in response to their feelings over their thinkings. If I can provoke an intellectual response as well as an emotional response, well, so much the better, but I don't work for the intellectual response, I DO work for the emotional. I know that there is a certain degree of danger in that. I'm am always flirting with being sentimental, or schmaltzy, or fluffy even. This was made rather clear to me a few years ago when I had entered "Altars" into Sunstone's First Annual (actually, One and Only) Mormon One-act Playwriting Contest. The judging of the plays took much longer than promised and without even trying to find out who the judges were, I was told who they were, by the judges themselves. Well, you know how it is, you're walking through the Harris Fine Arts Center at BYU stopping to chat now and then with some faculty member who still remembers you from your days as a student there and they ask you what you're up to now and you mention that you've entered a couple plays in this one contest and you're waiting anxiously for judgement to be passed and this faculty member and another says something like, "Yeah, I guess I better hurry up with that." "Oh, you're one of the judges?" "Yep." And there is this pause where you want to say, "So, how did you like my plays?" but you don't dare ask, so while you're trying to think of a believable segue to another subject altogether, the judge says, "You entered =91Altars' and =91Confessions,' right?" "Um,= yeah." Then one of these judges says this about "Altars," "Yes, it's quite an emotional piece, but you don't really bring anything new to the story, do you?" It was in that moment that I realized that I would never be able to be all things to all people as far as playwriting went. My audience would always be limited by something, whether that be subject matter, style of presentation, content or just about anything else, I saw that I would just have to be willing to give up a few people in favor of others. I have chosen to direct my efforts away from those who seek a purely intellectual experience. I believe MOST audiences want to be moved.=20 That is the audience I will work for. I will try to educate them, but not about politics or history or science or theology. My attempt is to teach them about themselves.] And, I believe, the education of the Mormon audience means teaching them to appreciate fierceness in art. We MUST support each other in this endeavor! So go see this work! Go! Go! And don't just go to support Scott in his worthy endeavor. Go because this work is worth seeing. This work is GOOD. (Note: Throughout this review I'm using the word "work" to refer to the set of two plays which intertwine so well in theme that they are more like two acts of a single play which just happen to have completely different characters.) [The interesting thing about that is that these two plays were written eight years apart. Back in ... around 1984 or 5, I was chatting with Barta Heiner and asked what I should write about next. She said that she'd always wanted to direct a really good play about Abraham and Isaac. That sounded like a good idea to me and almost immediately I began planning it out in my head. Probably the first decision I made was that the play would take place at the top of Mt. Moriah, would begin when the Father and the Son arrived at the summit and would end when the Father raised the knife ... before the angel came. (I will address Eric D's objection to this when I get to his review.) Over the next several years other little ideas about the play would occur to me, like the title -- Altars -- but I never committed anything to paper. In 1992 I was chatting with Barta again and learned that the Theatre Department was considering putting a new play by Orson Scott Card on the next season (92/93); a play about Christopher Columbus. If I remember correctly, it was to be a play based on his book _Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus_. In reality though, there was no play, only a treatment. In a fit of petty envy I said, "Why don't you submit =91Altars' for next season? I can give you a treatment on that." She said that she thought it was wrong to consider a script that didn't even exist and that she would never submit anything that wasn't already written. So, in 1992 I wrote "Altars." And it wasn't long enough to submit by itself; it's only a forty-minute play. On that subject I will interject here part of an afterword I wrote for a very limited edition of my play "Confessions." "... I had tried my hand at writing an absurdist play called =91Fata Morgana.' So, there I was with three one-act plays of disparate styles ... [but n]obody wants to produce one-act plays, not very often anyway.=20 I made a desperate attempt to link all three plays together with a common thread to see if that would make them more marketable. I called it =91Mountains: Landscapes of Sacrifice.' The first play dealt with the Akedah and takes place at the top of Mt. Moriah. I referred to it as =91Altars: On a Mountain Top.' Fata morgana is a term I learned reading Barry Lopez's book, _Arctic Dreams_. A Fata morgana is a type of mirage that appears under certain arctic conditions: =91 ... sunlight off the sea ice, through layers of successively warmer air, in which there is a sequence of slight temperature inversions, creates the appearance of a high grayish rampart in the distance. The wall appears in outline and detail exactly like a distant palisade seen through the earth's blue haze because the astigmatic atmospheric lens has broken the white ice up into areas of light and shadow, and vertical blurring has eliminated any recognizable features. If the layers of the air are then slightly tipped by a breeze and return to the horizontal in a regular rhythmic pattern (which occurs because of gravity), the alternation will produce permanent peaks and spires on an already steady image and the illusion is complete. The upper edge of the mirage appears serrated, like the ar=EAte of a mountain range; the gray walls suggest snow-covered slopes, even down to the dark ridge lines where wind has apparently blown the snow away; and the clefts of steep montane valleys are apparent.' Thus: =91Fata Morgana: Mountains in the Distance.' So far my thematic scheme was working. Both of these first two plays dealt quite specifically with the concept of sacrifice in some way or another; and both were religious in nature. Fitting =91Confessions' into the dual themes of mountains and sacrifice was going to require some rhetorical gymnastics if I didn't want to completely rewrite the thing and there was no way I was going to do that; I thought the play was fine just the way it was. First; what was being sacrificed in this play? Could I really stretch the limits of the imposed theme to include this play in the triad? It took only a few moments to realize that a little girl's youth and innocence were the lambs upon the altar here. But what connection did that have to mountains? As fate would have it I was finishing up some schooling around this time and was--or had recently been--in a geology class and many things mountainous were still rambling about in my brain.=20 The phrase mass wasting popped into the foreground. Mass wasting is the downslope movement of rock, regolith, and soil under the direct influence of gravity. In other words, erosion. My sister's faith and trust in paternal authority had been destroyed by the terrorism of Grandpa's abuse. A safe haven in the mountain of her father's love was impossible for her to find now. =91Confessions' became =91Mass Wasting: A Mountain Crumbles.'" This combination never worked and has since been abandoned. Because last year I somehow got it into my head to write "Tombs." I'm sorry to confess that I don't rightly recall exactly how that happened. I suspect that the influences that lead me to this play were subtle and worked on me for some time. I feel rather certain though that there are a couple of songs or more that probably started the fire within me. They are Amy Grant's Christmas song, "Breath of Heaven;" a song sung from the POV of the Mother of God expressing her anxieties about her worthiness to be such; the Primary song, "When Joseph Went to Bethlehem" which I first heard on Brett Raymond's cd, _Primarily For Grownups_. This song speculates on the nature of Joseph's attitude toward his stepson, the Christ child. And I think I should include the song, "Mary, Did You Know?" which I discovered on Donny Osmond's Christmas cd, _Christmas at Home_. I wrote "Tombs" in a relatively short span of time, mostly in the Provo Theatre Company's green room while I was in performances of "Wait Until Dark." I played Sam and appeared onstage only twice; briefly at the beginning and even more briefly at the very end. I spent the ninety minutes between scenes getting dinner and working on "Tombs." One afternoon I was working on it at home when my wife informed me that we were going to Bicentennial Park in Provo with a few other families from the ward for a big joint Family Home Evening event. I took my tablet and sat at a picnic table writing while the men played frisbee golf with some of the kids, while the rest of the kids ran wild and while the women sat around a blanket talking about pregnancy and breast feeding. This is where I wrote one of my favorite lines in the play: "SON -- I will bear the weight ... the pain ... the sorrow, the guilt of all the sins, of all the people, of all the times, of all the worlds ... at one moment." I showed it to my wife; "Look honey, =91at one moment.' That's only one syllable longer than =91atonement.'" "Uh-huh. That's nice."] [Scott Bronson] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #584 ******************************