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Public
buildings often speak beyond themselves, suggesting the
aspirations and activities of the people who occupied
them, and few nineteenth-century Utah structures tell
as important a story as the Salt Lake Theatre. Built in
1861 on the northeast corner of State Street and First
South Street in Salt Lake City, it survived two-thirds
of a century before it was razed in 1928. During this
time, its activities charted early Utah cultural ideals
as effectively as could a scholarly dissertation. There
were manifold subplots as well. The Old Playhouse told
of tension between Mormon and non-Mormon and of the assimilation
of eastern tastes and culture within the territory. Serving
other functions, it also revealed the style of pioneer
socials, and later of turn-of-the-century politics. Finally,
efforts to save the Theatre disclosed the strain between
historical preservation and modernity. In short, the Salt
Lake Theatre embodied Utah's early cultural, social, and
political history.
From the beginning, the Salt Lake Theatre was a community
expression, something like a medieval cathedral. Brigham
Young himself announced the project and vigorously pursued
its completion. At the time, Salt Lake City was a frontier
outpost of 12,000 people. The telegraph had recently established
rapid communication with the wider world, but no transcontinental
railroad yet existed to freight supplies and facilitate
construction of the building. Yet, before building an
enlarged meeting hall for worship or completing the much
delayed, religiously important Salt Lake Temple, the settlers
erected the theatre, easily the largest and most imposing
building in the community.
Part of the explanation lay with Young himself, who reportedly
once declared if placed upon a cannibal island and charged
with bringing civilization, he would construct a theatre.
But part goes to the Mormons themselves. From Nauvoo days
they had enjoyed drama, and on reaching Utah they staged
productions at H.E. Bowring's makeshift playhouse and
at the Social Hall. Neither was adequate.
"To name all who took part in the building of the
theatre would be an impossible task," one historian,
George D. Pyper, suggested, "for nearly every family
residing in Great Salt Lake City at the time was represented."
Principals included Hiram B. Clawson, general supervisor;
William H. Folsom, main architect; E.L.T. Harrison, interior
designer; Alexander Gillespie, Henry Grow, Joseph Schofield,
and Joseph A. Young, foremen; and George M. Ottinger,
Henry Maiben, and William Morris, scenery painters.
By modern standards the Salt Lake Theatre was not large.
Its outer dimensions were 80 by 144 feet; its capacity
was estimated at 1,500. In later years it was ill served
by accumulated clutter: a distracting marquee, obstructing
telephone lines, and an iron-grate stairway attached to
its eastern wall. At first, however, its exterior lines
were chaste. Two simple Doric columns commanded the entrance,
which had an inviting space of thirty-two by twenty feet.
The remainder of the facade was distinguished by simple
lines and by the chalky white plaster that seemed magical
at nightfall. In contrast, the interior, particularly
after an 1873 renovation, strove for elegance. It was
fashioned in the style of a European opera house with
a commodious parquet and four ascending circles. Two boxes
overlooked the sloping and unusually spacious stage. Farther
to the rear, the theatre had ample dressing, rehearsal,
and storage rooms that few American or European playhouses
at the time could equal.
From the first, the Salt Lake Theatre aimed to provide
"proper" drama in an uplifting atmosphere. When
U.S. Army cavalrymen threatened decorum, their attendance
was temporarily forbidden; if on-stage realism became
too stark, it was suspended. Even too vociferous an audience
might draw from Brigham Young a watchful look. Plays ranged
from Shakespeare to more common didactic melodrama. At
the beginning, "home" or stock companies, often
supported by a professional actor or actress in a main
role, formed productions. But the emphasis later shifted
to touring stage companies, with little local participation.
There was scarcely a luminary of the American stage who
did not make an appearance: Maude Adams; P.T. Barnum;
Drew, Ethyl, John, and Lionel Barrymore; Sarah Bernhardt;
Edwin Booth; Billie Burke; "Buffalo Bill" Cody;
Fanny Davenport; John Drew; Eddie Foy, Charles and Daniel
Froham; Al Jolson; Lillian Russell; Dewitt Talmage; and
scores besides.
There were also miscellaneous events. George Francis Train,
Oscar Wilde, and the phrenologist Dr. Orson Fowler lectured.
Japanese musclemen and sleight-of-hand magicians performed.
Symptomatic of Utah's abandonment of the theocratic ideal
of single-party government, in the 1900s the Salt Lake
Theatre hosted Democratic and Republican caucuses and
conventions, and in the process cradled the state's modern
political campaigning. There were socials, too. The dress
circle curved in a perfect semicircle to allow the placing
of a movable floor over the parquet seats. Once positioned,
the flooring permitted everything from children's parties
to grand balls in the most extravagant style. Over the
years there were formal balls in celebration of the Mormon
Battalion, the Pioneers, and American Independence; state
or military occasions for the territory's officialdom;
and benefit dances for city firemen, the Deseret Hospital,
or Jewish charity. Fifteen hundred men and women might
attend, with a many as 200 dancers on the floor at once.
The Salt Lake Theatre's financial history was checkered
at best. It was probably rescued from insolvency in the
1880s when a fire razed the rival Walker Opera House.
But receipts never did much more than meet expenses. By
the first decade of the twentieth century, things were
bleak. Vaudeville, motion pictures, and the leisure-use
automobile took customers from the seats. The situation
was made still more difficult by plays staged by touring
troupes. Mormon general authorities, who either formally
or informally had controlled the theatre from the start,
were increasingly offended by what they viewed as deteriorating
dramatic standards.
As Utah's economy struggled in the depressed 1920s, Mormon
Church president Heber J. Grant announced his intention
to close the building. For Grant, who had attended productions
from his youth and once had owned the building as a trust
for the church, the decision was troubling but necessary.
For other Utahns, however, the announcement was a violation
of pioneer heritage. Throughout 1928 the controversy went
on, with the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers especially
active to trying to retain the building. Suggestions that
the theater be refurbished, transformed into a museum,
or moved to a less valuable location were each rejected.
Neither local nor state authorities were willing to preserve
it.
However, the building proved an obdurate foe to the wreckers.
Its large, red-pine structural timbers were sound, and
the building remained unusually tightly fitted. Such pioneer
workmanship, combined with the structure's bastion-like
walls, meant that several more months of demolition than
planned were required. At the time of its demise, the
Salt Lake Theatre was nationally regarded as one of three
or four great historic American stages.
Ronald W. Walker
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