Contrasting Roles

I got to do a reprise of my favorite role this year -- I got to be a ruffian again! In fact I am such an impressive ruffian that this year I got to carry a torch.




Of course, I was only a ruffian at night. During the day I was the Assistant Temple Foreman, which actually was very much like what I did as Scoutmaster. I organized the young men to carry parts of the temple up for temple construction.

That is me in the black hat in the back. The young men carry those big temple columns up the ramp on the back of the stage, and I am just directing them. I come up on stage ahead of them walking backward so that I can keep an eye on them... I just figured out why those two parts work for me, because I don't actually show my face in either scene. The ruffian scene is too dark to see me, and in the temple building scenes, I keep my back to the audience the whole time. Maybe next year they will let me show my face!

We learned that as the pageant was being created, they had a few multi-media and special effects ideas, but then came to the conclusion that they wanted everything that happened on the stage to be based on 19th century technology, so everything that we do to "build the temple" is pulleys, ropes, levers, and muscle. And it is very effective. We have to work together and choreograph the process. Sometimes the pieces don't quite come together just right, or the pins don't go in easily, but those moments simply add to the authenticity of building a large structure with our hands.



That simple process gave us an appreciation for the amazing accomplishment of building the impressive structure that is the temple with only the tools that were available to them in the 1840's.