New play explores LDS Church founder’s forgotten son
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are intimately familiar with the life of founder and first president Joseph Smith, but how much do they know about his last-born child, son David Hyrum Smith? Before discovering David Hyrum in the pages of a 1998 biography, said local playwright Mahonri Stewart, “I didn’t even know this person existed.”
If you’d like to know more about David Hyrum Smith, then you may enjoy Stewart’s new play, “The Fading Flower,” which opens Friday in Provo and will be in performance through June 8.
David Hyrum grew up without ever meeting his father, born about five months after the elder Smith was murdered by a vengeful mob. In adulthood, he was a missionary for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for many years before suffering a breakdown and eventually spending the final 27 years of his life institutionalized.
After reading “From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet” by Valeen Tippets Avery, Stewart felt compelled to tell David Hyrum’s story onstage. “He was a poet, a singer. He was a naturalist and scientist. He had this strong, sensitive nature that I really connected to,” Stewart said. “His journey’s kind of tragic, and it’s kind of complicated.
“It doesn’t tie up with a neat bow at the end.”
David Hyrum’s mother, Emma Smith, is also a major figure in “The Fading Flower.” Actress Kathryn Little, who, like Stewart, is a Latter-day Saint, said that the idea of playing Emma intrigued her because the LDS faithful so seldom give any thought to the later decades of her life.
“I knew that she had remarried,” Little said of Smith, who lived 35 years after Joseph Smith’s death. “I knew that she had adopted a child fathered out of wedlock by her second husband. I knew she was a good woman.”
Like Stewart, however, Little hadn’t known about David Hyrum Smith, or even that Emma had been pregnant at the time that Joseph was shot and killed by vigilantes swarming over Carthage Jail. “That was a surprise to me,” Little said.
The play is a journey of discovery for David Hyrum, who, while attempting to proselytize in the Utah Territory, hears different accounts of his father than what he’s been told by his mother. Stewart said that some cast members were similarly challenged by some of what’s presented in the play.
For example, he said, many Latter-day Saints are surprised to encounter the fact, seldom acknowledged in formal LDS Church representations like the recent film “Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration,” that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. “Some people in the cast were like, ‘Really?,’ when we came across different facts,” Stewart said.
While the play addresses matters of history that might be deemed controversial by some Latter-day Saints, Stewart said that he thinks those issues are handled with faith and sensitivity. By creating a sympathetic and charitable atmosphere, he said, “I think it’s much easier to understand these people.”
If you go
‘The Fading Flower’ by the New Play Project
When: Nightly at 7:30 p.m. Friday through June 8 on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays; 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays
Where: Provo Theater Company, 105 E. 100 North, Provo
Cost: $8 ($6 for seniors and students)
Info: www.newplayproject.org, (801) 691-4494