No. I did not go see “The Book of Mormon” on Broadway. Sheesh. I thought you knew me better than that by now. (I did see Spiderman – it rocked)
Yes, it’s old news that The Book of Mormon took the morally bankrupt Broadway world by storm. The glitz, the mockery, the blasphemy – what fun! Even worse is that it has been hugely successful from a financial standpoint. Currently the show is making around $1.2 million a WEEK. And of course you know what that means… yep, The Book of Mormon musical will soon be performed at a great and spacious building near you!
Obviously this worldly version of the Book of Mormon on Broadway worked out much better for the investors than the first one. Yes, the first one. You know, the first time a serious Book of Mormon musical was performed on Broadway – the one based on the actual Book of Mormon.
What? You didn’t know?
Yes, it is true. The Book of Mormon has already been made into a Broadway musical. Old news – like 100 years old.
You still look confused…here, let me explain: (and no, I’m not making any of this up)
The Year: September, 1912
The Place: Oscar & Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera House, NYC
The Show:
Corianton: An Aztec Romance
A Romantic Spectacular Drama in Four Acts
Note: If you don’t know the story of Corianton and his father Alma, and also the story of Korihor, then you should not be reading this right now. Go get your Book of Mormon, read it, gain a testimony of it, and then come back. Then this will make more sense.
The premise of the play is that Corianton was disturbed because God had been so rough on Korihor, causing him to turn away from God. He then turns to a harlot named “Isabel”. Fun and frivolity ensue, then of course, the day of reckoning and repentance. Because…wickedness never was happiness.
Note #2: -In full disclosure mode: I am not a historian, and there are others who have written about “Corianton” with footnotes and everything. Most noteworthy is historian extraordinaire Ardis Parshall. If you want to read details about how “Corianton” went from novel, to play, to Broadway musical, to movie, then she has just the post for you from 2007. Corianton at Keepapitchinin link.—
The visionary behind the musical was none other than Orestes Utah Bean, a schoolteacher from Richfield, Utah. He developed the script from a novel “Corianton” written by church historian BH Roberts, and another book “A Ship of Hagoth” written by Julia MacDonald. The play was first performed in Utah in 1902.
Ten years later, Mr. Bean took the play to Broadway. He cobbled together enough money to fund the production, commissioned a new musical score, and hired the cast. As far as I can tell, none of them were members of the church. Which begs the question “What were they thinking?” The answer? They were thinking “Oooh! A paycheck!” Here are some of the players:
Corianton was played by Robert Warwick – he was the real deal – he would eventually appear in over 200 movies. No, Corianton was not a gangster. These pics were from another movie.
The prophet Alma was played by Charles B. Hanford, who appeared in other Broadway plays – none of them ran very long. This pic is from when he appeared in MacBeth, also authored by Orestes Utah Bean Shakespeare.
The femme fatale? Isabel was played by this cutie named Minnie Tittle Brune. She was born in California, but at one time, she was the most popular actress in Australia. She eventually went on to become a nun back in California – although I could not prove that this musical was directly responsible for that.
Even back then, it was coolest to play the villain. RD MacLean got rave reviews for his performance as Korihor. He looks awesome. He was in a few plays and a handful of movies.
Did I mention that the play was a bust? It only ran for one week – eight performances. And the critics were vicious. I never promised that it was a good musical, only that it was the FIRST Book of Mormon musical. And for the record, I never called it “queer”. (gasp!)
It sounds like Mark Twain’s comment that the Book of Mormon is “chloroform in print” might very well have applied to this musical version as well. Apparently it ran well past midnight, and was a bit “dry” shall we say?
To finish up, here is a review from the New York Times – enjoy!
There you go. Personally? Glad I missed it. Just like the new one. Hoping you feel a little more “cultured” now. Glad I could be of help.
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I am so glad I stumbled on this. Thanks for the heads-up. You and Ardis are both getting hat tips at our site next week. Thanks again.
Dude, that Korihor dude does look awesome.
This is really good! Way to go, MMMM!
“The Book of Mormon Movie” was in theaters in Indianapolis too. I liked the story.
The movie itself had some really bad lines, bad script-writing overall, bad acting, bad sets and costumes, bad directing, a little good cinematography, but most of the bad cinematography was bad. But other than that, I thought it was pretty good!
The story of the production of the Book of Mormon Movie sounds like it has a lot in common with the first BoM musical. The major investor of the BoM movie lost over a million dollars. If you want to help him out, you can buy several copies of the DVD.
Actually, it wasn’t an entire waste. There are parts of the movie where you can feel the Spirit.
Some day, when the church can afford to drop $10 million on a decent production, the story might make it back to the big screen.
I think it would take 3, maybe 4 movies (at 2 hours each) to do the BoM justice.
Brigham Young said that the only way you can kick the church is up-stairs.
Henline: What a great comment. It supports the notion that “there is no such thing as bad publicity”.
My two cents about the “Mormon Musical”. My Father-in-law is a wonderful man who isn’t a member of the church. He loves my husband and me, but he doesn’t love that we are members. He keeps it to himself, but we can tell he things the church is crazy stuff. We never talk about it- it’s too hard.
He casually mentioned to me that he saw that there was a new broadway show about our church… I informed him that it was a rather offensive parody of our beliefs and had no endorsement from the church. I was suprised at his reaction. He was shocked that people would blatantly make fun of someones beliefs like that and asked if I thought it would hurt our church. It gave me a very special opportunity to bear my testimony of what we believe. I told him that people have always tried to discredit our church and have persecuted members since it was organized with Joseph Smith. I then told him that I believe truth can stand on it’s own feet. Nothing anyone says or does can stop the truth from being true. I said that we belive God is at the head of our church and he has a plan for the church and it’s gospel to go to all the world. Nothing can stop it.
Awesome opportunity for me to realize how strong my testimony is about that stuff and even more tender that my F.I.L. wanted to know how I felt. So sweet!
I hope broadway continues (inadvertently) to spread some good news of the gospel. 🙂
If it was chloroform in print, why did one theatre goer need to call for ether?
You know, I think if the makers of the Book Of Mormon movie (the one that was in theaters, well, in Utah anyway..) new the bomb that was this play, maybe they would not have endeavored to make such a horrible movie that I haven’t personal witnessed.
I think everyone should give up and leave the awesome Mormon movie making to the church media. They do it so well! I mean look at “Johnny Lingo”, “The Phone Call”, “Cipher in the Snow” and “Godly Sorrow” (Aaron Eakhart’s debut)
Seriously though, The church media has come a very long way and knows better than anyone how to make scriptures come alive in movie form. Let’s leave it to them!
Janell: I checked out that link – thanks! While Orson Scott Card talks more about the movie than the Broadway play, I found his discussion on the “anti-aesthetic” fascinating. What an interesting read.
That is FASCINATING!! But I’d personally take boring (1912) over irreverent and disrespectful (2011) any day.
JWW
That is sad! I love Orson Scott Card. He does a great job in the Mormon Times. PS, Did you see that article about my son a couple of weeks ago in the Mormon Times? Yeah, he is that cool scout dude who earned all the merit badges…He actually received a personal hand-signed letter last week from the Prophet!
Sandy
It was a pretty sad story all around. I read about this before, it was actually Orson Scott Card’s grandfather who wrote it. He wrote about it in one of his columns once. I just went to find it and couldn’t. But he mentioned it in this piece – http://www.ldsfilm.com/ar/ar_aesthetic.html … Sounds like a guy who wanted to do something great and was pretty charismatic about telling others he could do something great, but then in the end he didn’t understand very well what really made something great. Sad story.
Seriously?! What people come up with and how is beyond me.
This Bean must not have been related to Willard Bean. Now he was a cool guy!
Too cool! Thanks for the trivia!
Ha! I’m not sure but what the current Broadway thingy is less damaging to the welfare of the world than Bean’s production!