Morphing Marvin Payne

I had put it off for the entire month the play was running. Finally, for the last performance, I thrust the cares of the world aside, piled my whole family into the van, and made it top priority that night to see James Arrington and Marvin Payne's one-man show, J. Golden. Boy, am I glad I did.

When the man walked on stage, he was Marvin Payne dressed and made up to look like an old man of a century ago who was supposed to be J. Golden Kimball. By the time the evening was over, the individual who walked off the stage was J. Golden Kimball.

The transformation wasn't immediate. Several minutes into the play I was watching Payne's performance as a performance. He was doing an excellent job of portraying a frail old man with a high-pitched voice, but he was still Marvin Payne made up. For a disrespectful instant I thought, if Marvin were acting this way under normal everyday circumstances instead of on stage, he'd look like a real dork. But this wasn't normal everyday circumstances. This was an experienced, professional actor, evoking a character with meticulous craftmanship, right down to the barely audible grunts as he lowered his rickety old body into a chair.

With the combined synergy of James Arrigton's pen and Marvin Payne's acting, the spell was woven. Where the pen left off and the acting began was a seamless boundary impossible to detect. As the spell lulled my left brain critic to sleep, J. Golden Kimball sprang to life before my eyes. It was only a matter of sitting back and enjoying the experience from then on.

The play was a tableau of J. Golden monologues, a stew of J. Golden stories, sayings, and attitude. From the beginning we knew what we were in for, as J. Golden walked out to the podium to address us like any church conference, only to be sidetracked by an unheard comment back stage, and J. Golden walked right back off to hear what the fellow was saying. Turns out someone was admonishing him to watch what he said to us.

I could see James Arrington written all over the script, which exuded the whiff of Farley Family Reunion. But that's not a criticism; it's an author's style carried over that worked just as well in an incarnation designed to fit the subject matter perfectly. The expected -- nay, essential -- colorful language that a play about J. Golden Kimball must have, were mostly reserved to "damn's" and "hell's" -- mostly -- no doubt in deference to the sensibilities of the modern Mormon audience, but that didn't even impinge on the play: watching it was too much fun to care about that sort of thing. Some classic J. Golden stories were told by the J. Golden character, only to have him turn around and say, "I never actually said that," giving the nod to the legendary aspect of our Kimball heritage. After one of those stories, J. Golden told us what he really said, then Payne paused for an instant that dragged on a little long, making us wonder if we should start feeling embarrassed for his momentary gaffe, only to discover that it was perfect comedic timing for the punch line that followed.

An evening watching J. Golden was an evening well spent, marvelously entertaining with a bit of thoughtfulness thrown in, just the right touch to avoid damaging the fun. As the end neared, it appeared that the obligatory maudlin "evoking of the spirit" was going to take place, and I sighed in resignation at what was probably a necessity for the LDS audience, only to have the threatened moment of schmaltz be snatched away as another fine J. Golden joke intruded. Masters were at work throughout the play maintaining the perfect balance.

If you doubt my glowing account, let me bring in the big guns. My teenaged son and daughter sat through the whole thing and enjoyed it. No teenaged whining about being bored; lots of smiles and laughter at the right places. If that isn't a meaningful endorsement, I don't know what is. Even my eight-year-old son, who broke out in a series of three sneezes and had J. Golden Kimball ad lib a reaction to it, thought it was a fine thing that he'd had a chance to contribute to the performance.

--  
D. Michael Martindale
dmichael@wwno.com