A Rummage Sale with Music | Donald R. Marshall, The Rummage Sale: A Musical in Two Acts

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It is an unusual talent that can write a collection of short stories, transform them into the script of a musical, compose and direct the music (songs and lyrics), and play the accordion, organ, and synthesizer for the taped instrumental accompaniment. This feat is somewhat like the same person pitching a fastball, slamming it from home plate, and making the catch in deep center field. Those who know Donald R. Marshall would tell you he could have done a creditable job directing and singing in the musical too. But, after all, there is such a thing as showing off. 

The Rummage Sale: A Musical in Two Acts, based on the short story collection of the same name, was presented by the Promised Valley Playhouse under the direction of Beverly Booth Rowland. Performances ran from July 5 to September 1, 1979 in Salt Lake City’s Shire West Theater. 

The Shire West, formerly the old 15th Ward chapel, seemed a uniquely appropriate place for this particular rummage sale. One feels that the building would be a familiar and comfortable place for most of the characters in the stories. 

The audiences were pleased with the show. Some thought it over-long, but everyone I queried found it highly entertaining. Aside from one glaring mistake in casting and some unevenness in the acting, the production deserves praise. The script and music are good and compensate in large measure for the few weaknesses in production. . 

The curtainless set, designed by Clif A. Davis, suggested the large attic of an old house. Items of rummage—furniture, chests, boxes, knickknacks—were scattered about. As the performers, like people at a sale, browsed, a particular item would be pointed out. This would lead to a blackout and then a segment in which the item was involved. The set’s many levels were skillfully used for a variety of scenes. And a variety was needed, because nine stories and sketches are interwoven to comprise the musical. Some of them are presented as complete units; others, such as those in the form of letters or diary entries, unfold gradually at intervals throughout the show. Despite this multiciplicy of elements, there is a surprising unity of conception that somehow binds things together. 

For those unacquainted with the book, here is a catalogue of the rummage on sale: (1) a funny and pathetic correspondence between an eager but unappealing high school girl and a “may-the-good-Lord-bless-and-keep-you” missionary; (2) a woman in her late twenties who travels restlessly, all the while enlarging her homemaking files, obsessed with finding “Mr. Right”; (3) a boy who discovers the disappointing reality behind the glitter and magic of the carnival; (4) a spinster set free by the death of her mother who makes a romantic pilgrimage to “Carmel by the sea,” searching an outlet for her frustrated artistic impulses; (5) a Ph.D. in art history and failed artist who visits his small home town and family, both of which he misunderstands and resents; (6) a solitary old woman who records her last lonely days of life in brief but poignant notations on the calendar; (7) the enumeration of momentos in an El Roi Tan cigar box found under a bed; (8) a bewildered woman who complains that “somehow they always seem to change it on you”; and (9) a small town woman traveler who records in her journal a trip to the Holy Land, during which she scarcely gets outside Intercontinental Hotels and souvenir shops. 

Those who liked the book would enjoy the musical. The adaptation is faithful to the original in a way that probably could only be accomplished when, as in this unusual case, the author of the book writes script, music, and lyrics for the musical. The tone and substance of the original remain; the music is a delightful new dimension. Don Marshall told me he loves films and writes with a cinematic imagination, clearly visualizing his characters and situations. This perhaps explains the fidelity of the dramatized versions to the originals. In many cases little alteration was needed. Most of the words of the musical come straight out of the book. There were changes, of course. The stage, being a different medium, required modifications, and the director’s taste and interpretation altered tone and emphasis. The humor was broadened. The nosey neighbor in “The Weekend” became a caricature of the observing voice in the story. The woman in “Somehow They Always Seem to Change It on You” became on the stage more stuffy and Victorian. The chronology of “The Monkey and the Fair” had to be clarified and regularized. But on the whole, the musical had the substance and tone of the book. 

How did the musical come about? Don was approached in mid-March by the manager and the artistic director of Promised Valley Playhouse who wanted permission to use parts of The Rummage Sale in creating a summer musical, an alernative to the annual production of Promised Valley. Don was reticent about having someone else turn the stories into a musical. He was afraid the treatment would be too light and the songs would be tacked on. If The Rummage Sale were to become a musical, he wanted it to retain its serious tone and have songs carefully tailored to the characters. He offered to do the script and music himself, which must have surprised them considerably. A week later, March 26, he had an outline or proposal to show them. He got the go ahead, with completion date scheduled for the first of May. In those six weeks, while finishing teaching the semester at BYU, he wrote the musical, at the end working round the clock. 

Had he written a musical before? No. As an undergraduate he had written three songs that won awards in social group competition at songfests, and as a missionary he had written a few more, for occasions such as a chapel dedication. He had written no songs since 1963. In annual visits to New York, he has seen hundreds of plays and musicals. I suppose this familiarity with musicals coupled with his own considerable musical talent enabled him to produce one of his own. One thing is certain: the music of The Rummage Sale is delightful and memorable, and the songs are perfectly suited to characters and situations. 

The show blends the comic and poignant. The comedy is not of the situation or slapstick variety. Don abhors most television situation comedies. His humor is gentle and grows out of sympathetic and penetrating observation of human experience, specifically that of rural Mormondom. The strain of satire is strong, but devoid of sting or bitterness. Instead, it contains a strong tincture of good nature and compassion. It often merges imperceptibly with the pathetic and touching. The audiences came away from the show greatly entertained, but also moved and enlightened. The portrait of rural Utah lives was delightfully familiar, typical, provincial, and funny, but it was undergirded by serious insights into the universals of human experience as revealed in distinct individual lives. 

A rummage sale draws our attention to the past. To what extent is Don Marshall preoccupied with the past and its nostalgic attractions? I asked him about this. In his reply he mentioned that at one point in the preparation some of the actors thought the costumes and setting should be of the thirties or forties. He reminded them that the letters of Elder Dunkley and Floydene Wallup are dated 1968-69. And LaRena Homer’s journal entries were made in 1971. In fact, with the exception of “The Monkey and the Fair,” a kind of reminiscence piece, all the stories and sketches used in the musical have a contemporary setting. 

Why did the actors have such an impression, which, incidentally, has been shared by many others? The answer lies in Don Marshall’s approach to writing fiction. He begins by imagining an ordinary sort of person living in a small Utah town and asks: What is it that makes this person special, interesting, worthy of his or her own literature? In filling out his conception of the person, he creates a body of recollections. People are, to a large extent, what they are conscious of, and much of consciousness is memories. An important dimension in his characters, therefore, is what they remember and how they feel about it. In this way, the past and the nostalgic have an important role in his stories. He does not begin with the primary intention of recreating the past. On the contrary, his principal interest is people in the present, but he believes that you cannot understand them without exploring what they carry with them in memory.

Will there be another Don Marshall musical in the future? He would like to do another, but this time starting from scratch. He found that adapting material, even his own, is restricting. But at present he is working on a novel and a play, and his interest in musicals will have to wait. I am sure those who were lucky enough to see The Rummage Sale hope it won’t be a long wait. 

The Rummage Sale: A Musical in Two Acts, by Donald R. Marshall, based on The Rummage Sale Provo: Heirloom Publications, 1972.141 pp. $3.75; $2.50, paper.