Evening Star Newspaper, June 21, 1931, Page 85

Josef Sell, the German who wrote the eomedy about Brigham Young. UROPEAN authors and playwrights have been discovering lately that very entertaining novels and plays can be built around certain characters and incidents in American history. - Sometimes the things that they select have been overlcoked by the writers of America. Thus the best play ever written around the life of Abraham Lincoln is the work of an English poet, John Drinkwater. romantic story of John Sutter of California gct its best expression from the French novelist, Blaise Cendrars. So it is, too, with another unique episode in American history—the early reign of the Mor- mons in Utah. All kinds of dramatic material lie buried there, but it remained practically untouched until the other day a German drama tist, on the Josef Sell, > SRt German Siage sparkling comedy called “The Twenty -fifth Wife,” produced it at the biggest theater in Darmstadt and saw it become one of Ger- many’s dramatic hits of the year. Herr Sell has chosen to make his play a light comedy, and he has taken more or less liberty with historical facts in doing so. He puts his action 1n the midst of one of the critical events in Far Western history—the occasion when United States troops were marched toward Utah to help install a new Governor in place of Brigham Young. Amelia Young, “twenty-fifth wife” of Brigham Young as portrayed HERR SELL emphasizes the clash between the Mormon organization and the United States Government, and makes Young the central figure of his play. As the play begins, Young has two things on his mind: - First, he is trying to find some method of avoiding a bloody clash with the United States troops. Seccnd, he has been smitten with the pretty face of Harriet Amelia Folsom, the daughter of a recent arrival in Utah, and he plans to make her his twenty-fifth wife. The opening scene shows a mountain pass where Mormons are on guard to give warn- ing when the first American troops are sighted. One of them, a young fellow named Taylor, is in deep trouble. He is in the bad graces of Brigham Young because he has only one wife and refuses to take any more; and he says: “He thinks one wife is too few. I think one wife is one too many.” While he and the others are talking, Young himself appears on the scene to get the latest news. He meets Folsom, who presents his daughter, Harriet Amelia. Young at once turns to the girl and says: “Harriet? Naturally, that wcn’t do. One of my wives is named Harriet, and that could lead to confusion if I married you. I shall call you Amelia.” Naturally, this makes Harriet indignant— especially since she herself is not a Mormon. She tells Young her name is Harriet and that she would not dream of marrying him. There is a lively interchange, to which Young’s final answer is that he will have her baptlr_cd into his church as socn as he has made peace with the American Army. But Harriet, sure that the American Army will overthrow the Mor- mon regime, remarks that “The Americans will play your wedding march.” The second scene is broad comedy, border- ing on farce. Brigham Young is s‘iuing in a big room with many of his wives. They are busily chattering after the manner of women everywhere, over the latest fashions in dress, as described by & kinswoman who has sent * them the latest news from New York. Young, ° bored to death by this chatter, seeks a diver- sion to shut them up; so he rounds on a wife named Mary Anne and tells her that their son, Jedediah, has been mishehaving. The great. 523 i e ‘A'HE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. -C, JUNE 21, 1931 German Play About Brigham Young’s 25th How a German Play- wright Read the Story of the Mormon Leader and Then Made It Into a Comedy Drama Which Is a Stage Hit in Europe. A OO 5 AR RN A - A 4 scene from Herr Sell's play showing Brigham Young sitting and thinking of Amelia, his newest love. A scene from the play showing Brigham Young at dinner with his wives. HE retorts that he is not her child—he is / Lizzie’s. Young takes out a notebook, which is a sort of catalogue of his 24 wives, with the names of the children each has borne him; and, sure enough, he finds the the wayward Jedediah is the son of Lizzie. He begs Mary Anne’s pardon, saying by way of apology that when one has 48 children he can be pardoned if he gets mixed. Presently Young dismisses his wives and Amelia appears. He immediately starts telling her how he loves her, and she coolly responds that he is a liar., In fact, Amelia says, she would much rather talk about a more interest- ing subject—how he manages to get along with so many wives without getting his eyes screatched out. Their talk ends with a quarrel, in which she saws that she is going to go back East and tell everybody that Brigham Young is a heartless exploiter and oppressor of women. The next scene shows the main hall in the Lion House, with the bed rooms of the various wives opening off of it. Here Herr Sell has used the procedure followed from time immemorial by every writer of comedy who took as his subject the Turk and his many wives—and some of the comedy that results is extremely broad. ° Presently Young goes out and Amelia comes in, to talk triumphantly to the “oppressed” wives. The Americans are coming, she tells them, and they can break their chains., To her amaze- ment they are not eager to break any chains, and seem perfectly willing to stay right where they are. One wife scornfully says that she does not see how their household affairs can possible in- terest the American politicians and the Ameri- can Army. When she lived in the East she had never heard of any American Army being sené. out because some husband regularly beat up his only wife twice a week and gave her a black eye. Young, she says, has 24 wives and treats them all with kindness; why should the United States Government worry about it? Amelia gives the wives up as a bad job. . Meanwhile the American troops have been coming closer to Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young has been getting ready for them. He sends almost the entire population of the city on a trek with their food and belongings to a village many miles distant, concealed in the mountains. The American general, when he enters, will find a deserted city. If Young does not make peace with him he will burn the town and leave the American Army to fight it out with the desert as well as it may be able to do. But when the general does -appear on the scene he and Young get on togethr in fine style, The general's only trouble is that he is not eager to take his forces back East again. To do so means to go back to his wife, and it happens that she is a tyrant. The campaign is just a holiday from her, and the general is not at all anxious to have it end. In fact, the general thinks there is something in this polygamy after all. OWEVER, Young is in a hurry to get the general out of Utah; and eventually they make a pact. If within three days Young can persuade Amelia to be his wife, the American troops will march away; otherwise, they will stay. The American general has heard Amelia reject Young's offer of marriage, and he be- lieves that this bargain is a safe one for him. Now, accordingly, it becomes necessary for Young to press his suit with all speed. He tried to work on Amelia’s feelings. He tells her how he created a garden in the desert, and speaks of the responsibilities to 60,000 men, women and children. He can save them all if Amelia will marry him. Indeed, he says, she need only go through the form of marriage if she wants to, and can go back East right after the ceremony. All along, Amelia has been showing a nicely graduated and -slowly increasing interest and affection for the Mormon leader. Now she con- sents to do as he wishes. The Yankee gén- eral sees the wedding performed and regretfully leads his troops back East—back to his terrible wife again. But Amelia does not go back with them. She has played her part in comedy, but now that it is over she decides that being Brigham L veirism od of am ol swmos slquos s asdW” Young's 25th wife is far from being the worst™ fate imaginable. Se she stays—and the play ends. So much for the play. Now it is necessary to point out how the playwright has taken liberties with historical facts. As a matter of fact, there was an early Mormon settler named Folsom—William H. Folsom, who helped de- sign the famous Salt Lake Tabernacle. And, as it happens, one Amelia Folsom was Brigham Young’s last wife, although the famous Mormon leader at no time had as many as 25, the number with which he is credited in Herr Sell's fanciful drama. In the closing years of his life, Brigham Young built a separate residence in which he planned to entertain. strangers gwho came 10 see him, as well as his many friends and official callers; and it was understood that Amelia was to preside over this house. However, the build« ing was unfinished at Young's death, and neither he nor any member of his family ever occupied it. However, it should be emphasized that the events described in the play are pure fiction, Herr Sell used Amelia Folsom's name, but in all other respects the Amelia of the play is a fictitious character, pure and simple. Costumes worn in the play are believed to be fairly good copies of the costumes worn in Utah in the days just before the Civil War, On the stage the women wear a sort of bloomer arrangement. quaint and old-fashioned in appearance; and it is known that in the 50s of the last century an attempt was made introduce a stabilized costume for Morm women—an affair of bloomers and skirts com- bined, which soon went out of style for the simple reasons that Mormon women had too strong a feminine fondness for pretty clothing to carry it on very long. A good insight into the actual home life of the Young family is given in a book, “The Life Story of Brigham Young,” recently printed in England and written by Susa Young Gates, one of Brigham -Young’s daughters. She remarks, telling of her childhood in the Lion House: “The Lion House was the loved home of as healthy and happy a family of mothers and children as ever dwelt beneath a roof. On this I speak with knowledge in this intimate revelation of Brigham Young's home life, for I was the first child born beneath its unique reof.” GLIMPSE of the evening routine in the Lion House is given as follows: “The custom of evening prayer-time in the Lion House was as fixed as the stars. About 7 o'clock the rhythmic sound of the prayer bell was heard as father’s hand lifted it in regular light-stroke counts and the flying feet of children, the quiet coming of his lady wives (for they were “ladies,” every one of them) filled the halls with clatter and soon every chair was taken while the patriarch and his . goodly family sat beside the center-table and waited till the last child came.in. “A hymn or two was joyously sung, for we were a happy lot of singers of gratitude and adoration; of appeal for each loved one and, for all the world for the work of the Lord in the various priestly functionings and for pro- tection from evil and accident. Then the fam- ily arose after the generous responses of ‘Amen,’ while the younger children hurried off to bed, perhaps, and the older ones hurried to study or to prepare for theater or ball if it was Winter or holiday time, or for quiet reading and chatting in the various sitting rooms of the several mothers.” And she adds: “We were all as happy, mothers and children, as we could have been anywhere under anyy" -other circumstances.” ¢ aq o mo (eQs bemid-li