This is what happens when southern Utah polygamists do a (very loose) interpretation of the Sound of Music .
The play begins with Maria, who lives at home with her family on a farm in Innsbruck, Austria. After a potential suitor visits, Maria's father tells the family their "way of living does not condone courtship."
Also, that's a picture of Joseph Smith — the founder of both the mainstream and polygamous Mormon churches — behind the family.
The play was staged by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a religion that includes polygamy among its doctrine. The church has no affiliation with the mainstream Mormon church, but traces its origins to the same founders.
According to a former member of the FLDS Church who asked not to be named, the play was called the Re-Sound of Music and was staged in 1995 at meeting house in Short Creek, a community on the Utah-Arizona border. Videos of the play were posted to YouTube late last year. It's an impressive production; though Short Creek is a very small community far removed from any major urban center, the production boast a full orchestra and a pastiche of musical numbers from various Hollywood and Broadway hits.
FLDS polygamists have often been made headlines in recent years, but most often for the crimes committed by convicted prophet Warren Jeffs or for chaos wrought by Jeffs' leadership. The FLDS community had long skeptical of outsiders, but the added scrutiny that ensued essentially turned it into a closed society. Occasional media profiles delved deeper, but the video of the Re-Sound of Music shows something entirely different and far rarer: a cultural event produced by and for the FLDS community.
As the first act of the play progresses, Maria's father decides to move to America to "be with our own kind." To help raise money for the trip, he gets Maria a job as a governess.
Before sending Maria away, her father advises her to "be prayerful, do your duty, and always keep sweet." The phrase "keep sweet" is a kind of ubiquitous mantra in the FLDS community.
Some scenes come straight out of the movie, like when Maria arrives at her new job, gets scolded for her dress, and finally meets the children.
The Captain whistles to summon his children, just as he does in other versions.
The former FLDS member told BuzzFeed Friday that the community frequently staged large productions in the 1990s because church leader "Uncle" Fred Jessop believed they were important. Different families did different plays and often performed them on multiple nights so everyone in the community could see them. "They did a variety of plays every month here," he said. "I was in many of the productions."
from BuzzFeed - Breaking http://ift.tt/WSNDIM
No comments:
Post a Comment