Audiences cheered, laughed and cried at the BYUH original play, “One Tattered Angel.” Adapted from Blaine Yorgason’s book of the same title, the play portrays the life of Blaine and his wife, Cathy, after adopting a baby girl, Charity, with no brain in the late 1980s.The climax of the play was a scene showing an intimate conversation between Blaine and Fred, a handicapped man. In their conversation, they reveal the greater meaning behind trials, limitations, and Charity’s suffering. Blaine: “Fred, do you ever wish you didn’t have…limitations? I mean, do you ever think you got handed a raw deal to life? Don’t you ever get tired of things being so hard all the time?” Fred: “When I hurt my head, I told my friend that hurting was very hard. He told me that when things got hard for me, it just meant that Jesus loved me lots.” Blaine: “Wouldn’t Jesus want to help you - to stop your pain?” Fred: “Hurting does help me. It helps me to feel like Jesus felt when He hurt. My friend said that all Jesus’ life he had hard things happen to him, just like me. He told me to remember that Jesus wasn’t born in a hospital like this but in a barn. He was wrapped in ragged old clothes, and they made his bed out of a smelly place where animals are.”Fred, played by LeGrand Lawrence, a resident of Laie, helped Blaine to understand why Charity’s limitations were a blessing. Out of character Lawrence said, “A lot of people said they enjoyed the one scene. One person said it tied everything together. Another told me they cried during that scene. Saturday night they clapped after the scene.” Russel Carlson, assistant professor of Math, said, “Brother [Craig] Ferre did a great job adapting the book. I haven’t read the book, but I was worried because you never know how local adaptations are going to turn out since they’re not usually too good, but I was really impressed. The way he put it together really helped bring the feeling of the Spirit and the message the author was trying to get through and it really did come through powerfully.” According to Ferre, Yorgason was going to attend the play but was asked to perform the endowment session for his granddaughter who is leaving on a mission.Elizabeth Saylor, a sophomore in education from China, who played Yorgason’s friend Brenda in the play, said Yorgason gave the cast comforting words in his absence. “One of the things Blaine said is he knows Charity will be watching as an un-tattered angel, and I felt like every time we were doing it, we were doing it with Charity,” Saylor said. “The Spirit was evident in the reactions of the audience despite the fact that we messed up since we’re an imperfect cast. The Spirit is what reached people, not necessarily our performance.”Performing “One Tattered Angel” at a church university like BYUH brought something special to the play, said Erik Adams, a senior from Oregon studying biology. “The play was different than a normal experience you might get at the theatre because of its LDS themes. You could feel the Spirit if you were trying to and invested in it.”Saylor said not all people were fans of the play. “We’ve had people critique it. The people who had negative critique were usually the kind who watch movies, for example, to critique them and not enjoy it,” she said. “But even then they couldn’t deny how good the Fred scene was.” Kimberly Kitto, a junior from Utah studying psychology, played Cathy, Blaine’s wife. Kitto said she felt like the cast conveyed the message of the play more effectively than they thought. “The crowd responded very positively. We had more laughs than I was expecting,” Kitto said. “I think they just picked up on the human side because there were a lot of situations people can relate to. There was a lot of crying but also a lot of laughter. We did better when the audience worked with us.” Kitto said, “I think [the play] was a sweet reminder. This brought a different experience and message to the theatre program because it wasn’t a comedy and was a real story.”
Writer: Joshua Mason ~ Multimedia Journalist
