by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Several prior posts here have highlighted artifacts from the Museum’s collection related to the long-running and popular “The Mission Play,” penned by John Steven McGroarty and performed for some two decades adjacent to the Mission San Gabriel. The performance largely celebrated the Roman Catholic missionaries and their efforts to Christianize and “civilize” the indigenous people of greater Los Angeles with a heavy-handed, one-sided romanticism that not only largely bypassed the perspective of the natives of the region but utilized Indians from other parts of the country in its telling.
Still, “The Mission Play” went through more than 3,000 performances and was witnessed by around 2 million persons from 1912 to 1932, as well as revivals in 1939 and 1941 (a radically revamped version was produced close to a decade ago) and it was widely lauded for its dramatic elements, music and dancing and much else and was commonly called the “Oberammergau of California” because of its purported similarities to the renowned German passion play.
For many years, the principal dancers and choreographers of the play were the team of Juan Zorraquinos and Juanita Vigare, who were married in 1915. Juanita was the daughter of French native Juan Vigare and María de la Luz González, the sister of Laura González Temple, and the featured object from the Homestead’s holdings is a letter from Juanita to her aunt Laura dated 30 October 1916.
The missive was written on the letterhead of the Hotel Jackson in Sioux City, Iowa, which lies along the Missouri River on the western edge of the Hawkeye State bordering Nebraska. Juanita was on the road with the rest of the theater company as The Mission Play underwent its first traveling tour after five successful seasons at San Gabriel.
The troupe performed in such places at Salt Lake City and Omaha during October before an Iowa run that included shows at the state capital of Des Moines before heading south to perform at Kansas City, Kansas. In its publicity for the performance in town, the Sioux City Journal of the 28th featured McGroarty’s efforts to produce his work, observed that the tour was to last two years, including extended engagements in Chicago and New York City.
It was noted that, while the author was encouraged by such luminaries as Henry Van Dyke of Princeton University, David Starr Jordan of Stanford University and others, he had trouble getting interest from producers, so
Out in the dead adobe town of San Gabriel he built a theater that seats 1,200 people. They burned nothing but candles in San Gabriel, so McGroarty built an electric light plant to light his theater . . . and altogether piled up a formidable debt of $50,000 on his shoulders. Calamity was predicted for him on every hand, particularly by the theatrical men, who prophesied that all the money in the world could not make a play of this nature a success, even though it were to be produced in the heart of a great city instead of in the woods.
Yet, “despite the shaking of wise heads,” the inaugural 1912 season lasted ten weeks, followed by a second campaign of twenty-three, though the 1914 one was but seven. The previous year, however, “The Mission Play” was performed twice daily for eleven months “and was witnessed by more than 50,000 people who made the inconvenient journey to San Gabriel to see it,” though why traveling ten miles outside of Los Angeles was considered a problem was not explained.
When McGroarty decided to take the show on the road, he was advised to do so with just a small part of the San Gabriel contingent and to fill the rest of the roles with new hired actors and others, but “he is carrying with him on special trains his original cast of 104 people from San Gabriel.” This included “twenty-two of the Indian full blood dancers, sixteen Spanish dancing girls and boys of California, an entire family of Pueblo Indians, descendants of the cliff dwellers, ‘Lux Oshy,’ Indian actor, and an Indian orchestra of seven musicians.”
The Des Moines Tribune of the same day enthused that “in the Mission play, the most gorgeous pageant drama on the American stage, John Steven McGroarty has caught this reality that is life itself” and it asserted that the use of most of the actors who began with the production four years prior meant that “the play is a part of them, as they are a part of the play” and they “are like members of one big family—devoted to the family pact, which is devotion to the play.”
The paper observed that “the Mission play is the only great pageant drama that has not been filmed,” something it added would not be permitted by McGroarty, and concluded,
There are twenty-two Indians, real Indians, of the Mission tribes, Yumas, Sioux, Chickasaws. The Indian dances are real Indian dances by real Indians, giving the world today the spectacle of which is fast coming to be a lost art. The dances are directed by a chief who was a great man among his own people.
The Des Moines Register of the 29th recorded that the play had been staged 969 times since its inception and felt that “it is a story that teaches and at the same time gives beautiful enjoyment.” Meanwhile, looking ahead to the engagement there, the Kansas City Post of the same day reported that “the play is one of the largest traveling theatrical organizations in the world” and found that “the pageants depicting Indian and early mission life are colorful and striking.”
The Los Angeles Times of that day commented on leading lady Lucretia del Valle, who played Josefa Yorba, and the fact that, wherever the troupe performed, she was feted by former Californians, including at Denver (where, observed the Philadelphia Inquirer, also of the 29th, a special mass was provided for the performers) and Salt Lake City. It added that “with all the courtesies, she is very homesick for California, especially now that each day she goes farther into the storm country.”
The Post of the 30th recounted the story of McGroarty’s efforts to get the play off the ground, noting that he not only erased the aforementioned debt, but had a healthy profit to boot and quoted the playwright as remarking
It is the story of a dream come true. It is the story of faith rewarded. I believed in my work and I believed in myself, and I staid [sic] with it . . . We are on our way to fill a two years engagement in Chicago and New York. You see, there was a time when no manager would look at the “Mission Play’ but now they all want it.
But this will be the only tour the “Mission Play” will ever take. When we get back to our sunny home in San Gabriel we will never again wander from it. I am giving the people, who never hope to come to California, a chance to see the “Mission Play.”
The Journal, reviewing the performance in its edition of the 31st, called the piece an “entrancing pageant” but made an interesting reference to the tour “toward the habitats of money changers and the temples of sex drama in the metropoli [sic] of the country known on the map as Chicago and points east.” Moreover, the paper opined that “’tis neither the province of this article, nor would it be polite, to prognosticate wherein the wisdom of the Mission Play’s sponsors is shown or not shown in peddling coals to the Newcastle of the drama.”
Still, the paper reported that attendees in Sioux City “found it a refreshing bit of sadness—vast and daring in scope—colorful and appealing to all the senses for which the stage was intended as a mode of expression.” Meanwhile, McGroarty was lionized more “as a speculator with faith” than in the composition, as it was argued that “it is called a play, yet in no sense is it.” Rather,
It is a sublimated motion picture—three distinctive shadows of the past of a romantic country, which speak out the longings, the ideals, the rewards and the tragedy of that zealous band of Franciscan fathers who made California of the days antedating the gold rush.
Just as the performance tested the definition of what constituted a play “by other and unique standards,” this applied to the cast because “there are points where the efforts of some of the actors are unmistakably amateurish,” though this was deemed to be where “lies much of the charm.” Wilfred Roger, playing Junipero Serra, and Ralph Bell, who performed as Gaspar de Portolá and a military commander, were praised, while del Valle “proved not only a diversion, but a pleasurable surprise in her romantic exposition of the sad finale of the glorious work of the Franciscans.”
The Halloween edition of the Kansas City Star cited local public librarian Purd Wright as an authority to review the play because he’d seen it in San Gabriel and he offered that “I don’t believe even one who never heard of California could fail to respond to the colorful, dramatic settings and the appealing love story that gleams through all the story,” while he also claimed that “it is remarkable for its fidelity to historical fact.”
The Journal of that day recounted the story of how The Mission Play was created and produced though it quoted McGroarty as stating that, after a meeting in New York with Van Dyke, Jordan and others, he labored on the work, though he added that “really I lay no claims to being a dramatist.” Echoing what was said above about the idea that the work was a play, he continued that “I knew nothing whatever of writing a play; I just went ahead and dramatized history.”
With respect to Vigare’s letter, she began by telling her Aunt Laura “we arrived here yesterday and will play here two days, from here we go to Kansas City for two weeks.” Asking how the family was back home, she showed concern for sick relatives and then returned to her situation, stating, “we are all well here and the play is doing good business so far.”
After discussing the likely onset of cold weather soon, she inquired “how is Tommy and Agnes getting along with their music,” which refers to the fact that Laura was a music teacher prior to her marriage to Walter Temple and instructed her 11-year old son and 9-year old daughter. She then asked her aunt to “give Edgar lots of kisses for us,” this being the youngest of the Temple children, then aged 5, but it is notable that nothing was said directly about Walter, Jr., who was 7 years of age.
The missive ended with a request for a reply “once in a while” while sending “best love and regards to uncle Walter and the children.” Mention was made of a good amount of snow experienced in Denver and the taking of pictures, which, if of good enough quality, would be forwarded to Laura. In signing her letter, Vigare listed the Shubert Theatre in Kansas City as her address for receiving an answer.
The Mission Play troupe continued its performances until early in 1917, including in Chicago, but declining attendance led to McGroarty and the sponsors pulling the plug and returning to Los Angeles. Perhaps the further away from California and the western and plains states they company went the less interest there was in something that likely would have seemed less relevant and more foreign.
In any case, as McGroarty stated, the play never traveled again outside San Gabriel, though it continued to be quite well-attended. In October 1916, the Temples were readying for a test oil well on their 60 acres in the Misión Vieja/Old Mission ranch in the Whittier Narrows and, the following summer, the first producer was brought into production.
When a new theater was undertaken, including Temple’s business manager, Milton Kauffman, as a director of the company formed for the project, Walter was, with Henry E. Huntington, the largest individual donor to it, offering $15,000 toward the construction of what is now the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse.
I love how the post describes drama as “dramatized history.” By this definition, Paul could easily write over a hundred plays or screenplays. Many historical figures and real events in this blog are already so fascinating and compelling that they hardly need any dramatization.
Well, Larry, there’s no pressure on Paul, that’s for sure!