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September 10, 2004
The history behind the Lewis and Clark show
By PHILLIP GOMEZ
Today, the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York continues to encourage "the identification and exploration of the value dimensions in the important religious, social and political issues of our times." With 150,000 visitors each summer and an annual budget of $16.8 million, the institution has grown to include numerous lecture halls (1,200 buildings and homes), a theater, a hotel, tennis courts and a golf course, a symphony orchestra, an elementary school, a full-service community center, sports and fitness clubs and a summer staff of 1,300 employees. Tickets for the Chautauqua season can run up to $2,250 for an adult admittance. From its humble beginnings the Chautauqua movement in the 19th century spread across rural American communities, many raising their own brown canvas tents and lining up local or regional talent to participate. In the early 20th century, "circuit Chautauquas" made the rounds of communities, much like circuit-riding judges, wandering preachers and route "drummers" known today as salespeople. It was the arrival of radio and the Great Depression that killed the tent Chautauquas in the late 1920s and early '30s, and with them went much of the public discussion, storytelling and local color that had enlivened the movement since its beginnings. In late August at Pahrump's Winery, "Chautauqua 2004, Recalling the Corp of Discovery" entertained an outdoor audience of about 65 people nightly at each of its weekend shows. A luncheon on Saturday provided a roundtable discussion of different aspects of Lewis and Clark's adventures. While Lewis and Clark came nowhere near Southern Nevada on their westward journey to the Pacific Coast, the nation is currently celebrating the bicentennial of the expedition that has been - or should have been - studied by every American school child. Lewis and Clark, along with other historical figures of their era, have become popular characters for "living-history" portrayal at Chautauquas around the country. As with the circuit Chautauquas of the early years of the last century, what goes around comes around - this time to Pahrump. The Pahrump Arts Council presented three professional scholars who re-enacted in dramatic, costumed interpretations the lives and times of pivotal characters in the famed expedition. Brian Kral, Southern Nevada program coordinator for the Nevada Humanities Committee, portrayed Capt. William Clark. Professor James Armstead, an expert in international and environmental law, acted in the role of York, Clark's manservant and slave. Michael Connolly, a faculty member of the Engineering Technology Department at the Community College of Southern Nevada, presented his interpretation of Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian trapper in the employ of the expedition and the husband of the Indian interpreter Sacagawea. After Lewis and Clark, the 1800s chronicled a century of intense industrialization and rapid westward expansion. But the century also marked a period of intellectual and social ferment. Innovations in public education (John Dewey and curriculum reform at the University of Chicago), in the printing of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines (the telegraph, transoceanic cable, web press and linotype machine), the expansion of public libraries (Carnegie endowments) and a burgeoning entertainment industry (Chautauqua, the circus and vaudeville) had taken shape by the close of the century. After nearly a century of brutally hard work on farms and in factories, it seemed that Americans were hungering for intellectual stimulation. The Chautauqua movement answered to the call for self and civic improvement, along with an entertaining good time under the big top. But then, as suddenly as it had burst onto the scene, the movement died out. Chautauquas came to seem quaint and out of date in the electronic age of radio and movies and later, television. But 45 years after its demise, in the mid-1970s in Bismark, N.D., a group of people dedicated to the humanities and arts decided to try to revive the nearly lost art of homespun Chautauquans. Young people were leaving farms all across the Great Plains for work in distant cities and North Dakota was losing population. A cultural event like Chautauqua was just the thing, organizers believed, to jumpstart local interest in the state's history, humanities and arts. In nearby St. Paul, Minn., a man by the name of Garrison Keillor would shortly begin a public radio variety show called "A Prairie Home Companion," harkening back to '20s radio shows but its folksy humor and cultural references a lineal descendant of the earlier Chautauquas as well. Today, 448 million listeners nationwide hear the weekly live program through distribution by American Public Media. The '70s Chautauqua revival on the northern plains sparked similar movements in other regions of the country, and today a half-dozen states lead the nation in organizing and putting on summer Chautauquas: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nevada. The first five have formed an umbrella group called the Great Plains Chautauqua Society, which travels around to different cities within the region putting on shows under an expandable circus tent. Nevada, with three permanent affiliate offices of the National Endowment for the Humanities, is perhaps the most supportive of Chautauqua programs in the nation. "The Great Basin Chautauqua, in terms of sheer numbers of people who turn out, is the biggest in the country," says Steve Davis, assistant director of Nevada Humanities at the University of Nevada, Reno. Davis says Reno's Chautauquas draw, on average, about 1,000 people to each show, with as many as twice that on their best nights. Nevada's well-funded "on-the-road speakers' bureau," like old-time circuit Chautauquas, enable small, rural communities to sponsor artists and performers at smaller Chautauquas. "Any community can get (performers) out there for a nominal fee," says Davis. As the essential story of human existence, the humanities are well represented by Chautauqua's "traveling culture," combining education and entertainment in an outdoor community setting. Chautauquas "celebrate our living history in an ever-changing world," according to promoters of the concept. The idea behind the on-stage historical interpretations at the Chautauquas is for the audience to make believe, through "time traveling," they are back in the period portrayed by the characters in period dress. The actors, playing off one another, remain in character to offer their perspectives - true to the history they have researched - of the events and people of their time. Period music is sometimes performed between skits to add historical flavor. There is also a youth adjunct Chautauqua put on by the Reno-based organization for budding thespians aged 8 to 18. Young Chautauquans, like their adult scholar counterparts, commit themselves to six months of reading biographies of their selected historical personage, learning stories and rehearsing monologues in front of other Chautauquans at bi-monthly meetings. They create a costume with the help of grandmothers and thrift stores and polish their acts before community groups prior to the summer Chautauqua season. This past season in Nevada, Chautauquas were held in Reno and Lake Tahoe, presenting a tribute to American democracy called "The People, Yes!" Re-enactors demonstrated a host of 19- and early 20th-century characters: singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, preacher Aimee Semple McPherson, poet Carl Sandburg (the title is his), President Theodore Roosevelt, agitator Emma Goldman, journalist Jacob Riis, actress Clara Bow and others. The Nevada Chautauqua season has closed up north, but Boulder City has two last shows for the summer of "The People, Yes!" at the Boulder Theater Friday and Saturday. |
