The Mountain Play Celebrates its 100th Birthday

On the muscled flank of Mt. Tamalplas (sic), with a dip In the hills for a theatre and a two-hundred mile panorama of tumbled ridges, dazzling water, half-sunk islands and distance-silenced cities for a back curtain, a handful of Inspired amateurs discovered to dwellers about the Bay the feature (sic) setting of a new and native drama.  

It was an audience of strangely mixed pioneers who assembled for this open-air play on the Marin uplands. Professors and their families, Sunday trampers escaped from their week-day commerce in the cities, tourists wide-eyed with curiosity, and society folk—all absorbed in the unfolding of history-making events.
San Francisco Examiner of May 6, 1913  

The past couple of years have been big for centennials around Mount Tamalpais, an indication of how rapidly the area was changing in 1912-13. The Tamalpais Conservation Club and the Marin Municipal Water District both celebrated their 100th birthdays in 2012. The original Muir Inn, a station of the Mill Valley & Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway, burned to the ground in 1913, when a massive wildfire swept across the mountain.  The railroad itself went through a big reorganization that same year, changing its name to the Mount Tamalpais & Muir Woods Railway. The California Alpine Club was created in 1913, an era that historian Lincoln Fairley refers to as the “Heyday of Hiking.”

Perhaps the most enduring event on Mount Tamalpais to take place in 1913 was the staging of the first Mountain Play. The location near Rock Spring, in a clearing of the forest that forms a natural amphitheatre, is ideally suited for drama. The stunning backdrop of San Francisco, the Bay, the passing ships, and the afternoon fog fits harmoniously into the slopes of the mountain. The natural elements highlight the drama that is taking place on the stage below in a way that evokes a divinely inspired stagecraft. The rustic amphitheatre has held performances every year since 1913, except 1924, when an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease closed the area, and 1942-45, when the Army took over the top of Mount Tamalpais.

The story behind the Mountain Theatre has a cast of characters worthy of the many dramatic productions that have taken place there. The idea for building an amphitheatre on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais originates in a story that some say is a myth, while others swear by its veracity. Hikers Garnet Holme, John C. Catlin, and Richard Festus “Dad” O’Rourke were traversing the mountain from West Point to Rock Spring when they stopped by a large outcrop of rock to take in the dramatic view. Holme, a director and playwright, is said to have exclaimed “What a perfect setting for an outdoor theatre.”

Plans were immediately set in motion and the Mountain Play was envisioned as a way to not only promote Mount Tamalpais, but also to protect the mountain and save it for all the people to enjoy. Catlin wrote the forward for the first program, giving the mountain voice to call out to the people:

From this spot where you now hold festival, I have been witness of many a world drama. I saw Sir Francis Drake, storm-tossed and sinking, driven blindly by the long-sought haven that lies at my feet. I watched the devoted Franciscans and weary soldiers come to the Golden Gate and stand spellbound by the glory of their discovery. I saw the pioneers come to their golden land and build a city. I saw that city sink to ashes and I saw it rise again.

The first play was performed at the Mountain Theatre on May 4, 1913. It was a production of a medieval miracle play entitled Abraham and Isaac, directed by Garnet Holme. Scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night were also performed as an added attraction. More than 1,200 people attended the play, paying one dollar apiece for tickets. For the next thirteen years, the Mountain Play would be directed by Holme, who also wrote the 1925 production Drake, a pageant depicting Sir Francis Drake and his travels from England to the shores of California. Garnet Holme was himself a traveler from England, having come to the United States with a theatre troupe called the Ben Greet Players. He stayed on in California after the troupe returned to England and became a drama coach at the University of California, Berkeley.

After the success of the first play in 1913, the Mountain Play Association was formed “to produce an annual, spectacular, outdoor theatrical experience that nurtures an appreciation of Mt. Tamalpais, involves and strengthens the community, and builds on decades of tradition.” They had their first meeting in the offices of the Tamalpais Conservation Club, in the Phelan Building in San Francisco, on February 25, 1914. John Catlin was elected president of the association, Dad O’Rourke became 1st vice president, and William Kent was 2nd vice president. An inspirational slogan of the organization connected Mount Tamalpais with the Mountain Play for all time: “Where you have mountains, there you shall have free men.”

Dad O’Rourke, who spent many years hiking the trails of the mountain and was one of the founding members of the Tamalpais Conservation Club in 1912, is remembered today at Dad O’Rourke’s Bench. This beautiful stone bench, hidden among a grove of bay laurel trees not far from the Mountain Theatre, is located at one of O’Rourke’s favorite parts of the mountain, a place he called “the Edge of the World.” On his 76th birthday, his friends brought him to the bench for a celebration, dedicating a plaque in his honor.

Shortly after the Mountain Play Association was founded, its board of directors passed a resolution that recognized the importance of preserving the Mountain Theatre in the form of a park, predating the creation of Mount Tamalpais State Park by more than a decade. The resolution stated, in part:

WHEREAS the Mountain Theatre, the scene of this annual performance, is unrivaled in beauty and scenic grandeur, and peculiarly adapted for a mountain play, it should therefore be preserved for all times as a public park for the diversion and inspiration of all the people of California and especially the bay cities.

An important figure in the story of the Mountain Play was William Kent, who just a few years earlier had donated the land that became Muir Woods National Monument.  Kent also owned the land that formed the natural amphitheatre where the Mountain Play was staged, and in 1914 he deeded it to the Mountain Play Association. He insisted that the amphitheatre be named in honor of an old family friend, so thus was born the Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre.

Both Cushing and the Kent family were big investors in the Mount Tamalpais Railway, which was a popular means for early theatre goers to reach the Mountain Play.  Originally known as the Mill Valley & Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway, the company reorganized in 1913, changing its name to the Mount Tamalpais & Muir Woods Railway. This was a reflection of the spur line down to Muir Woods that opened up in 1907, around the same time that Muir Woods National Monument was created. Nevertheless, it will always be known by its nickname, “The Crookedest Railroad in the World,” because of the 281 hairpin curves it negotiated on its way from the Mill Valley Depot to the East Peak of Mount Tamalpais.

The railway played an important role in transporting people to the early Mountain Plays, with a station at West Point that brought drama devotees within a mile of the Mountain Theatre. The West Point Inn was a popular stop for those who did not want to hike all the way up the mountain from Mill Valley. They could get off the train and hike along the beautiful Rock Spring trail one mile to the Mountain Theatre.  On the way back, they could stop at the Inn for dinner, if they had the much coveted reservations.

Fred Runner, historian for the West Point Inn, describes in the West Point Inn Association Newsletter, how the Inn was also important to the performers:

In those days the Mountain Play actors and director stayed at the Inn. They came by train on Saturday, dropped their things at the Inn and headed for the theatre for rehearsal. Later, they returned to the Inn for dinner. It's easy to imagine a boisterous evening beside the fire with great tales, song and Shakespearean theatrics.

Starting with the 1915 performance of Rip Van Winkle, Dan Totheroh acted in a number of Mountain Plays.  In 1920, Garnet Holme asked him to write an original play that would incorporate Mount Tamalpais and its legendary profile of a sleeping maiden. The result was Tamalpa (also spelled Temelpa and Tamelpa), which was performed in 1921 and seven more times over the years, as recently as 1970.

Tamalpa was often described as a Miwok legend, with a script that refers to the “Hookooekoo,” a name that anthropologist A.L. Kroeber used to describe one of the three tribes of the Coast Miwok. But the staging of the play, which consisted of painted teepees, actors clothed in buckskin and moccasins, set to the constant beating of tom-toms, suggested a romanticized depiction of the Sioux or Cheyenne. The story was pure fantasy, the tale of the maiden Tamalpa, whose tragic love for a young warrior inspires her to bring him to “… a place that we must climb steep trails to find, but when we reach the top there is a throne of rock that sea birds brush with gray white wings and fog wraps round.”  Alas, their love is not meant to be and Tamalpa is condemned to forever lie in repose on the mountain top, cloaked in a purple blanket.

One of the natural landmarks in the Mountain Theatre is Pohli Rock, a large outcrop that stands high above the audience. Early photographs show a very open terrain, with the rock rising directly above the grassy slopes of the amphitheatre. Today it is surrounded by bay laurel and toyon trees, along with towering Douglas-firs. The rock itself is adorned with moss and lichens, guarded heavily by poison oak. It was named after Austin Ramon Pohli, the stage manager for the production of Abraham and Isaac.  Pohli was killed in a tragic fall while climbing in Yosemite, just weeks after the play, and is now commemorated by a plaque on the lower part of the rock. The plaque was unveiled in 1914, at the start of the performance of the second Mountain Play, a Sanskrit classic called Shakuntala.

In 1929, another plaque was added to the rock just a few feet away, this one dedicated to the director Garnet Holme, with the words “I lingered on the hill where we had played.” In a tribute to the natural environment, Holme incorporated Pohli Rock into the scene of some of the early Mountain Plays. In the 1921 production of Tamalpa, the rock stood as a platform from which the Great White Spirit of the mountain stood, proclaiming as Tamalpa’s body was carried to her final resting place:

Throw over her the purple cloak that she will always wear – a shroud of amethyst from tip of toe to crown of hair.

For the first two decades of its existence, the Mountain Play was performed in the natural clearing just above Rock Spring. The performers and the audience gathered together on the steep hillsides, in what was truly a “natural amphitheatre.” The July 1919 issue of Theatre Magazine described the 1915 production:

"RIP VAN WINKLE" staged on the slopes of a purple mountain far above the clouds in a natural theatre that has real pines for wings and a soft carpet of grass for a floor, colored by lupins and California poppies—that is what is being done, once a year, on the rugged slopes of Mt. Tamalpais, across the bay from San Francisco.

This very natural amphitheatre underwent a considerable renovation in the 1930s, as part of the many New Deal public works projects carried out nationwide by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). In order to qualify for this type of public project, the Mountain Play Association deeded the land of the Mountain Theatre to the state and it became part of Mount Tamalpais State Park. The CCC built terraced rows of serpentine boulders that were set deep into the ground, ensuring stability in an era that had little awareness of earthquake safety. The boulders, which were quarried from serpentine outcrops around the mountain and transported with great difficulty to Rock Spring, weigh approximately 1,500 pounds apiece. They were set in 40 rows that curve around the natural contours of the mountain slopes, creating seating for 4,000 people.

The Mountain Play was not the only thing happening on Mount Tamalpais 100 years ago. In September of 1913, famed botanist Alice Eastwood hosted a large group of her fellow botanists from around the world, members of the Second Phytogeographical Excursion. Ms. Eastwood arranged with her friend Mrs. Thomas Kent, Sr., daughter-in-law of William Kent, to get everybody free passes on the Mount Tamalpais & Muir Woods Railway and a luncheon at the West Point Inn. Mount Tamalpais was chosen by the botanists, most of them European, for its significant representation of unique plant life in the New World.

The Mount Tamalpais Railway continued to be closely connected to the Mountain Play, donating $300 each year to the Mountain Play Association. 1913 was a big year for the railroad, with hundreds of people riding the trains every weekend. A special “Moonlight Excursion” was advertised for July 19th of that year, enticing passengers to “Come and Have a Good Time.” The trip included music and dancing, dinner at the Tavern of Tamalpais with “Popular City Prices,” and a round trip fare of $1.

The railroad began to lose business in the 1920s as automobiles became a more fashionable mode of travel. The last train ran down the mountain on October 31, 1929 and the tracks were torn up the following year. The railroad is remembered today at the Gravity Car Barn, a small museum at East Peak that tells the story of The Crookedest Railroad in the World.

The Mountain Theatre has been a Bay Area cultural institution for 100 years now, hosting not only the Mountain Play, but other events as well. In 1967, the Mountain Theatre was the scene of a “Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival,” attended by more than 36,000 people. The two-day concert in June heralded the beginning of the Summer of Love, and featured performances by the Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, the Byrds, Wilson Pickett, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and the Steve Miller Blues Band.

The Mt. Tam Astronomy Program takes place at the Mountain Theatre each year, on the Saturday between the new and first quarter moon from April through October. Sponsored by the Friends of Mt Tam, the event features talks by noted scientists and astronomers, followed by a Night Sky Tour with the Urban Astronomer. Afterwards, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers have up to a dozen telescopes set up in the Rock Spring parking lot, where people can view stars, planets, and constellations.

The Mountain Play is celebrating its 100th birthday this year with a production of The Sound of Music, with the backdrop of Mount Tamalpais playing the role of the Austrian Alps. Performances started in May and continue on June 8, 9, and 16. Tickets can be bought online at www.mountainplay.org or by phone at (415) 383-1100.

A number of events and exhibitions are taking place to commemorate the 100th birthday of the Mountain Play and the numerous other centennials taking place around the mountain:

The Anne T. Kent California Room of the Marin County Free Library will sponsor a free talk and audio-visual presentation about Mount Tamalpais history by Fred Runner, author of Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway. The talk will take place on June 20, 12:00-1:00PM in room 330 at the Marin County Civic Center.

The Tamalpais Conservation Club (TCC) had its centennial last year and is continuing the celebration this year with the Mount Tam Jam, A Benefit for the Mountain. This music festival, which the TCC bills as "a creative response to the well-publicized California State Parks budget crisis here in our own backyard," will feature performances by Galactic, CAKE, Taj Mahal Trio, Mike Farris & The Roseland Rhythm Revue, Danny Click and the Hell Yeahs. The festival takes place in the Mountain Theatre on June 22, 12:00-7:00PM, with proceeds benefitting Mount Tamalpais State Park. More information can be found at www.tamjam.org.

The California Alpine Club will hold an open house on June 23 to commemorate their centennial, with exhibits, presentations, and a talk by historian Fred Runner about the old Mount Tamalpais Railway. The event takes place from 1:00-4:00 PM and is free to the public. The Alpine Club is located at 730 Panoramic Highway in Mill Valley. Visitors are asked to RSVP to the Open House coordinator at gene.kendrick2013@comcast.net.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Fred Runner, who is the historian for the West Point Inn and a docent at the Gravity Car Barn on East Peak. Fred not only provided me with some of the historical photos used in this article, but has also helped with his wealth of historical knowledge about the history of Mount Tamalpais. More than anything, Fred has given me the benefit of his amazing storytelling skills and his ability to make history come alive. I would also like to thank Laurie Thompson, Librarian with the Marin County Free Library and Curator of the California Room at the library, for permission to use the photographs from the library’s Mountain Plays Collection.