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Show Broadway runs comedy on U's first president Y f . . n t ?f w3- e- 1 :' A '; ( A- V L- '1 f ' t ", ; i: ' ' A :- -. 1 By Mark Woodworth Special to the Chronicle NEW YORK CITY John Rockey Park opened on Broadway last Wednesday night in one of the first comedies of the new theatrical season, a play called "Woman Is My Idea." What was the early president and developer of the University, the educator whose likeness in bronze overlooks the lower campus and whose name graces the administration building, doing on the professional New York stage with such luminaries as Don Quixote, Bolly Levi, George M. Cohan, Auntie Mame and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (to say nothing of the likes of Marlene Dietrick and Mao Tse-tung)? It was the idea of Don C. John Rockey Park (John Heffernan) marries Emily (Lara Parker), who f he believes is dying, before Brigham Young (Hugh Marlowe). The play on the Utah educator lasted five days on Broadway. Liljenquist, a former graduate student at the University, that Dr. Park's story could be turned to dramatic purpose in that great shredder of plays known as Broadway. That Mr. Liljenquist's idea was perhaps more plausible than his product was acceptable to the critics (the play closed after five performances) is not due to any supposed failure of John Rockey Park to have lived a full and fascinating life. His record stands; his imprint on the educational system of the entire state of Utah was deep. Park the foresighted educationalist, progressive administrator and celebrated bachelor won wide esteem, as did Dr. Park the inspired and inspiring teacher, the independent thinker, the influential nature conservationist, the noble man in the truest sense of the word. Skips First Years Mr. Liljenquist, who set some sort of record by directing as well as producing his own play (his first on Broadway), skips over the early years of John Rockey Park, the Ohio farmboy who went to New York University medical school and worked at Bcllevue Hospital, then headed for the Colorado goldfields but found himself teaching a village school in Draper, Utah (as well as helping harvest crops, dig carrots, husk corn). Neither does the playwright tell of times previous to Dr. Park's being appointed head of the foundering University of Deseret (which, upon his taking office in 1869, had neither faculty, campus, lecture rooms, library, nor students), adventures had when as a bullwhacker he drove an ox team to Oregon Territory, arriving there with $2 in his pocket and teaching school on the Willamette River before returning to Utah. Deathbed Marriage The play begins after a trip Dr. Park had made to Europe specifically to study educational systems in France, Switzerland, Germany and England. On the return ocean voyage the Doctor (as he was called by his students) met three immigrant girls, one of who transcribed philosophical notes he dictated and, so the story goes, at the same time became attached to the long-time bachelor. On her deathbed, in a marriage ceremony performed less for time than for "eternity" (or so her reluctant bridegroom thought), she became legally attached to Dr. Park and to his home. Home, as a contemporary of the Doctor described it, was "a sweet cottage on City Creek's winding street," filled with books and flowers, a vegetable garden and fruit trees outside and five adopted children inside. The historical home, built by a wealthy mine owner who moved to Denver, was represented on stage by the attractive set of Lloyd Burlingame, who has won praise for many Broadway and Off-Broadway designs. Woman: A Disembodied Idea On one viewing, the play appears to illustrate that woman as a disembodied idea can better be taken by an effort of will than through impulse or by passion; the thoughtful man marries on the basis of intellectual love rather than of attraction purely physical or purely emotional. Thus, when the deathbed marriage, to which Park had consented only through the intercession of his friend Brigham Young, turns out to be not simply a matter of marriage for eternity (which was endurable to Dr. Park since he was basically a skeptic), but rather a marriage for the here and now (because unfortunately for him the girl recovered), Dr. Park has some heavy reasoning to do before he can bring himself to accept the role of a husband. In the play, he is advised by his lawyer friend Lehi Hardiman and bullied by one of Lehi's three wives; he is guided by the prophecies of Brigham Young and opposed by a federal judge who resides temporarily in his house and militates permanently against Mormonism and its "pernicious doctrine" of polygamy. Polygamy itself comes in for a good share of the action, providing images undoubtedly titillating to monogamous Easterners. The judge's argument that polygamy is unlawful lust is deflected by Lehi's reply: "If you had three wives and 18 children to support, how much time would you have ( ! for lust?" And the defense of N Brother Brigham, being sued for It divorce by Ann Eliza, that he is a ' good and faithful husband, a prompts the query, "Faithful to 8 whom?" to which Brigham's riposte, of course, is "Faithful to 13 all my wives." Much knowing laughter. The humor is nearly as slight throughout, and the play's train of events is fairly predictable. As Clive Barnes noted, somewhat unkindly, in his opening-night review for the New !S' York Times, "It is one of those ( M unsurprising plays only a mother i could love. The author's mother at l that." Mr. Barnes further observed that the "play lacks as much in conflict as it does in interest," although he modified his remarks & by praising the performances ci John Heffernan (who made an m impact when he acted another e religious rebel on Broadway. "Luther"), Hugh Marlowe as a powerful Brigham Young and the ' beautiful Lara Parker as the Doctor's wife (her "spectacular radiance charmed even while it made the reluctance of her partner Ji all the more incomprehensible"), fa Not Memorable Theater Woman Is My Idea, while not a memorable evening of theater, was i an interesting experience to this University alumnus, in that it brought alive the memory of John Rockey Park whose influence as an educational developer was so profound. Further, the University has a specific relation to Dr. Park's marriage the subject of the play because it was made the beneficiary of his will. Unfortunately, his bride in real life, Annie Armitage, who had obtained a church divorce, married another man and raised his family, later sued for a share in Dr. Park's estate; their short-terra and long-past marriage was ruled legal, and she was awarded one-third of his estate, at the expense of the University. Such are the hazards of divorce. |
