http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/nyregion/hill-cumorah-pageant-offers-mormon-spectacle-way-off-broadway.html?_r=1

Any comments?

says one pageant fan.

A few comments from mormons about how we-know-everyone-makes-fun-of-us-and-thats-OK

A concilliatory attitude that in many ways I appreciate, BUT it's also simply a criticism-blocking posture.

But mormons very much ARE of the world.

Yesterday I tried to comment on the NYTimes article but couldn't figure out how to. I couldn't find any comment link (point my nose at it if you find it). So I went to the SLTrib Mormon blog thing that points to the Times article. Last I looked, mine was the only comment:

"A very big difference between the two spectacles, however: The storyline in the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" is based on truth. By that, I mean the songs and dialogue reflect what Mormons actually believe. The storyline in the "Hill Cumorah" pageant is based on myth and falsehoods. By that I mean it's all myth and falsehood."

It used to attract 100,000 or more a year. They don't promote it like they used to. Most people that attended were non-LDS, now the opposite is true.

Also dumbed it down, shortened it, and gave it the Star Wars treatment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2011 04:17PM by verdacht.

I live several hours away, and read this thread around 4PM, so Googled and saw that it started at 9:15 PM, so I decided to go.

I first saw it in 1962, and most recently around 1990, and as Verdacht says, it sure has changed.

As guynoir says, guys in cast used to be dressed like Friberg paintings, but no more.

It used to be preceded by an hour of recorded hymns, but didn't seem to be although if it were they would have been drowned out by the Baptists hecklers with bullhorns. Perhaps by pre-negotiation with police, they stopped the instant the opening prayer began and resumed the instant the show ended. Couldn't hear anything the hecklers said except "You must be regenerated" which seemed like a dense jargon word for bullhorn usage.

One very pleasing change - I had myself all psyched up not to get sucked into conversation where they would get my name and address, but no-one made the slightest attempt to.

Instead of boards on cinderblocks, the seating was now individual chairs like a school lunchroom, really nice. I had the wits to dress cool but bring a warm jacket, and needed it. Some mosquitoes but not too bad.

I had my notebook with both 3g and wifi. The wifi carrier said "Pageant" and of course needed a password I didn't have, so I used 3g instead.

I actually liked the dumbed down, shortened version. A lot less Jacobean English. One place it had "you" and "ye" in the same sentence, but it was actually correct as the "ye" was in a quote.

I was pretty polite but laughed out loud a couple times, once at the name "Sam" and once at all the metal swords, and once thinking of how I once believed a handful of people could become hundreds of thousands in a few centuries.

It's really clever how the driveways to parking snake through ChurchCo's own property, so your car never gets too near the hecklers, though you certainly hear their bullhorns. As I walked to my car afterward, I saw a uniformed county sheriff on a bicycle, circulating around the parking lot.

Hey, I'm so old that I remember when the only dissidents would silently hand you a flier from the church of the firstborn of the fullness of times!!! Was that the LeBarons' splinter group?

Hope you liked my travelogue!

S. Tissue Trotter, who used to post on the old RfM board as "scrabbler".

that was interesting. thanks for the report. was there a large crowd? was the crowd all mormon or do others come for the show as well?

Thanks for your reply. I just got home now, at 4:00AM. Drove all the way home with a check engine light on, and never thought to anoint the car or give it a blessing. (Grin!) Actually, the gas cap is a replacement and that's probably all it's complaining about. As long as it's not flashing, it's not urgent.

Oddly, I can't really answer your questions, although I'm sure verdacht is correct. Years ago, there was huge pressure to fill out a card with your name and address, and they would put a little sticker on your chest after they got it, so others wouldn't pester you. None of that now. I could easily have asked anyone what the ratio of members/nonmembers was, but I'm sure verdacht is correct.

Many, many more young kids, age 5 to 12, in the cast, probably just for the scene where Jesus talks to the children, but it did mean they were all costumed and in the processional.

I sat at the extreme left section, and it was 80-90 percent empty, though I imagine the center section was fuller. And this was midweek, so maybe the chair setup was to handle weekends. Up ahead of me, there were 50 seats reserved for the deaf, and I saw only one deaf man, two college age deaf missionaries, and two interpreters.

Food concessions now, to benefit local Lions, Rotary, etc. - good PR move to please the local nevermo townspeople.

My timing was just right, but left no time to see historic sites, or drive by the temple, which I have never seen.

I was surprised that the Angel Moroni statue on the hilltop is no longer visible from the seating area - they have torn out the evergreens and allowed the native hardwoods to grow tall.

One thing I miss a little - they still had a destruction scene, but no smoke, therefore no long wait for the smoke to clear while a funereal voice said, "Wo, wo to all the ...." I think I am correct in spelling "Wo" rather than "Woe", (or "Whoa"!)

And then they used to hit the spotlights on a missionary dressed as Jesus, who would descend by walking down a tarpaper stairway while everybody wondered if he would trip and fall. Good times!

I'm not sure why it's no longer advertised much, or used to get referral names, but I'll bet the internet makes it so easy for people to see it's false history the moment they get home, that that changed the agenda.

Hope they have no way to get contact info from my car license plate, but then, why would they want to?

This was 1990? You had a notebook and 3G? Or are you speaking of another time? You must be talking about a later date, right?

Sorry, Cludgie, I thought I was clear - my most recent *previous* visit was 1990, but reading this thread, including your earlier comment, yesterday afternoon, inspired me impulsively to jump into my car and make the long drive to go there. My comparison was between yesterday's show and the long-ago ones.

I thought it would be fun to use 3g to post to this site while viewing the show, much as others have posted here during sacrament meeting, but given the darkness in the audience area, my screen was embarrassingly bright, so for politeness I waited till afterward, thus my subject line about typing this while on the Hill. The darkness is why they schedule it during the week of the new moon, so the stage lighting is more effective.

One more contrast with the past - I can remember when traffic was backed up for miles at the Thruway exit; state troopers would take advantage of that by standing near the toll booth looking for expired inspection stickers, which I used to think was their hostility to the Lard's work.(!) This time there was *no* backup - in fact, even on the rural road leading to the site, 45 minutes before show time, the cars were a good 20 car lengths apart, and zipping right along.

That possibly explains why no recorded concert beforehand - no need to schedule arrival an hour early, and no need for time to work the crowd to get referral info.

One joke on myself - as I left, I stopped in a town to the south to type into mapquest for directions, and mapquest could not understand my request. Then I realized that instead of typing in "Shortsville" I had typed in "Short Creek", which old-timers will remember as the site of a polyg town out west of 50 years ago.

One surprise - I learned through Google that my former stake president had later become CEO of Kodak, then got forced out. It said he died three years ago. I think they had a couple Mormon CEOs, can't remember the name of the other one.

I get very little sleep these days.

describe this thing. Now I don't have to go. Ever!

Last time I went was in the mid-late 80's. I remember it being a looooong drive from the Boston area, and I actually fell asleep through most it.

I do remember the people trying to hand us leaflets as we left.

Here's one fer ya:

"So Paul Rylander, a controls engineer from nearby Lockport, noted that no one had found any dirt about Mr. Romney"

One might assume that Rylander believes that being a Spineless flip-flopper, pandering to special interest groups, isn't 'dirt'.

Right.

(Yawn)

The usual MoFluff Piece. I'm-a-betting that nearly 100 % of the attendees are/were LDS.

Oh; I did notice that (now) most of the costumes are 'garment friendly'... Don't know if they always were (or, pix in BoMormon?)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2011 05:16PM by guynoirprivateeye.

Reminds me of the girl I saw on a dance program whose name was "Cumorah Hill". Do parents think they get extra celestial brownie points for giving their kids names like that???

Quote from the story---
"Her husband added, “We’re in the world, but we’re not of the world."

Yeah, right, you are from Kolob. How about them 7 foot Quakers on the moon? 10-4, good buddy.

He has a long beard that he has grown out.

The pageant is cheap fantasy theater.

Here is a documentary with Native Americans from western New York and what they think about the Book of Mormon.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1590/In-Laman-s-Terms--Looking-at-Lamanite-Identity

10:13
explains that people lived have lived in New York near Cumorah for 7,000 years so the bofm is bs.

17:33
explains how wiping out an entire nation is bs in terms of the cultural ways of Native American.