Posted 4 years ago
artfoot
(367 items)
For most of my seventy-five years, I have lived in Southern California. In all that time, I have never attended the Ramona Pageant. Though it has been a presence all my life, promoted as a romantic tale of pre-statehood California, sadly I had no idea what it was about. Since it came up in a discussion the other day, I thought I should find out. After all, it is “the longest running outdoor drama in North America.”
The Ramona Pageant play is an adaptation of a novel by Helen Hunt Jackson. First staged in 1923, it has been performed yearly (with only a couple exceptions) ever since in a natural amphitheater in the Hemet foothills. It tells the story of Ramona, a mixed-race orphan adopted by a Californio woman who subsequently neglects her so she falls in love and runs off with Alessandro, the son of the Temecula chief. Nobody is happy with all the miscegenation. Fortunately after the birth of their first child, Alessandro goes insane and is killed. Ramona then returns to her adopter's house, marries her son, has more children and lives happily ever after (See, it is a melting pot). I'm sure I'm leaving out the details.
In 1959, Raquel Welch played Ramona at the pageant.
