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Celebrating the new CD

"front porch Hymns & Humns"

Trouble is, you have to get invited by whoever's throwing one.

The way around this, of course, is to throw one yourself!

It would be fun! Ask me about it. mp@marvinpayne.com

[Flash! Deseretbook.com has this DVD.]

I'm really pleased. I thought we were saying goodbye to it when we closed it on stage a couple of winters ago, but it looks like it will survive in a big way. I'm leaving the stage review here on this page, just because I'm proud of it. Forgive me.

(R. W. Rasband, writing for the Association for Mormon Letters.)

"Hancock County" is...an intelligent, thrilling, tightly-drawn courtroom drama/tragedy that unfolds into a meditation on America, violence, and forgiveness. [Playwright Tim] Slover gets a rollicking, frontier, Mark-Twain-like quality to the story that draws you in like good historical fiction. The clash of visions between competing groups in America is a subject that will never go out of style...The slipshod application of justice will also remind you of...other trials where fairness and expediency collide.

The cast is excellent. Marvin Payne is the hard-drinking, rumored-to-be-corrupt prosecutor Josiah Lamborn. He brings a rawboned, hard-bitten worldliness to the role that eventually dissolves into a humble acceptance of truth and fate. Jeremy Selim is Orville Browning, the lead defense attorney (and eventual co-founder of the Republican Party.) His oily sanctimony is made worse by his total sincerity--he's a nightmare of the lawyer run amok (and a devastating comment on the intolerance of some 19th century Protestant Christians.) J. Scott Bronson makes a doughty, smart Brigham Young. Robert Gibbs is the nasty Tom Sharp, the editor of the "Warsaw Signal," who egged on the Smiths' murder. His flag-waving patriotism conceals a ruthless greed and self-interest. Anna McKeown and Stephanie Foster Breinholt poignantly portray the struggles of women on the edge of society...Bob Nelson is Judge Richard Young, opportunism personified.

Slover deftly deals with the folklore of retribution that grew up around the "fate of the persecutors." He reminds us that justice in this world is seldom so neat. The heart of the play is, interestingly enough, the King Follett discourse of Joseph Smith. Lamborn eventually comes to realize that Smith's enemies had to kill him because they could not stand the responsibility Joseph's vision would place on them. And Brigham Young finally comes to realize that sometimes you just have to "let go" in order to move on--and that sometimes the way of the Lord will get you hurt.

This is not a play that appeals just to the parochial interests of LDS audiences. Non-Mormons should find much to appreciate here; the magnificently drawn character of "gentile" Josiah Lamborn should be a vehicle through which many people can get a grip on what happens. Indeed, he contributes the central insight of the story: no one is "just one thing." A crucial scene occurs when Eliza Graham must testify about her knowledge of the murderers' boasting. But she has also become aware of the secret system of "spiritual wifery" in Nauvoo and the pain it has caused the women, and she has been embittered by it. Lamborn tells her that everyone is human, even prophets; and "ain't that what you're supposed to do, forgive?" It's a powerful moment in a play that is full of them. If there were any justice in this world, someone would make an indie movie out of "Hancock County," it would become a hit and Tim Slover would become as famous as Neil LaBute. But as this play reminds us, justice is a slippery thing in this world. DON'T MISS THIS PLAY IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET TO IT!