Far out on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley — about as far west as you can go without piling into a mountain, actually — there’s a little town called Magna.

My local readers probably all just snickered; Magna doesn’t get a lot of respect around here. It began a century or so ago as a company town housing workers for a nearby mine and smelter, and it’s never managed to live down its humble roots or its rough-and-tumble reputation. It’s certainly not a place you’d think to go in search of an enjoyable night of live theater. But that’s exactly what The Girlfriend and I experienced Friday night at a charming little place called the Empress Theatre.

Located on Magna’s historic main street, the Empress has had a colorful history. You can read about the details here, but the short version is that the Empress was originally a burlesque house, back in the 19-teens when Magna could’ve passed for what we now think of as the Wild West; in short order, it morphed into a silent-movie theater, then eventually was closed and left to rot for decades before being purchased in the ’80s by a guy named Leo Wares. The old theater was in bad shape by that point — among other problems, the roof had fallen in — and Leo would sink 20 years and $30,000 into renovating the place, only to suffer a debilitating car accident and the indignity of Alzheimer’s Disease before he could see his dream to fruition. A group of local residents has since formed a non-profit organization to complete Leo’s project.

There’s still work to be done, but The Empress Theatre has been open for business a little over a year now, showing “family friendly” live plays and comedy improv groups.

The GF and I discovered the Empress by pure happenstance: we learned a couple weeks ago that a guy we know, a member of the subset of friends I think of as “The Usual Suspects” (long story), had landed his first big acting role in the Empress’ production of The Foreigner. Friday was opening night and we, along with the rest of The Usual Suspects, planned to be there to support him.

I gotta be honest: I wasn’t expecting much. Utah often seems to be the world capitol of community theater — the impulse to “put on a show” is one of the strongest threads in the tapestry of Mormon culture — and I’ve always reflexively dismissed that sort of thing as the worst kind of amateur-grade fromage. I’m sure that’s not fair and is probably more indicative of some kind of personal hang-up on my part than any reflection of the actual talents of my neighbors, but, well, community theater just strikes me as something Ned Flanders would really be into, you know? Embarrassingly wholesome and utterly uncool, for lack of a better description. And out in Magna of all places? Good lord… I worked out that way about ten or twelve years ago and remember the town as a run-down, mildly ominous place where dry yellow weeds sprouted from the sidewalks and all the windows had bars on them. In more recent years, the closest I’ve come to that forgotten outpost of the valley is whizzing past it on I-80 when Anne and I go to see her family in the next valley over. But, you know, you have to support your friends, right?

As it turns out, Magna is much improved since the last time I visited. There are still lots of vacant storefronts along its classic small-town-style main street, but the community is obviously making an effort to renovate and restore the area, and The Empress stands like a glittering gem near the very end of the street. It’s a beautiful old building in the beaux-arts style with lots of little curlicue details around the roofline and wonderful, old-fashioned strings of individual colored light bulbs around the marquee and soffitts. Leo Wares and the Oquirrh Hills Performing Arts Alliance that succeeded him have done a fine job of bringing the old girl back to life. But that’s only the building; I still had the actual performance to endure…

The Girlfriend and I were met at the door by a man whose name unfortunately escapes me, but who obviously had something to do with the running of the Empress. He shook our hands and welcomed us like long-lost cousins arriving at a family reunion. Inside the small lobby, the woman at the will-call desk repeated the unexpectedly friendly greetings, asking us our names, shaking our hands, remarking on how familiar we looked and asking if we were from the area (I told her of course we look familiar, the gene pool is pretty shallow here in Utah, and got slightly puzzled laughter in return). By this point, I was thinking this evening had “Flanders” written all over it; maybe I’m too cynical, but the exaggerated friendliness initially struck me as rather weird.

The auditorium features three sections of seats arranged in a sort of U-shape around the stage. The Usual Suspects and ourselves all had seats on the front row of the center section… which turned out to be right on the stage itself, mere feet away from the overstuffed chairs that were part of the set dressing. This definitely was not going to be like an evening at the Pioneer Theater in Salt Lake.

The down-home vibe continued as one of the cast members from the evening’s performance — a young man probably all of 17 years old — came out on stage to announce there would be a raffle during the intermission, with all the proceeds going to help the ongoing renovation. The fabulous prizes included a car wash, free tickets to another performance, that sort of thing. This operation, so obviously scraping by on $1.98 and the good will of Magna’s citizens, was beginning to charm me with its good-humored earnestness. The theater staff — most of whom appeared to be children of the man by the front door and the lady at the will-call desk — obviously knew most of the audience members and were calling them by name, joking and carrying on like… well, like small-town folks do around people they know. The atmosphere in the Empress was turning out to be disarming and even comfortable, not weird.

And then the play began. And I was very pleasantly surprised. With the exception of one cast member who seemed to keep forgetting his lines, the caliber of the performances was only slightly below the professional theater I’ve seen in Salt Lake. It’s a funny play, the story of a shy, depressed Englishman who’s come to a Georgia hunting lodge for a few days. He doesn’t want the pressure of having to speak to anyone, so the friend who brought him to this place concocts a story about him not speaking English (hence the play’s title). Because all the other inhabitants of the lodge think he can’t understand them, they naturally begin confiding in him, and soon he’s in the position of knowing everyone’s secrets and having to act to save the day from one character’s nefarious scheme.

Our friend acquitted himself wonderfully in the title role — he’s only been studying the craft for about a year, making his performance all the more remarkable — and the 17-year-old I mentioned earlier, playing a slow-witted, Forrest-Gumpish character, stole every scene he was in. We laughed, we felt good when everything turned out in the end, and I walked out of the Empress Theatre that night without any regrets for an evening lost. I even re-shook the hands of the staff in the lobby and took their cheerful, “Goodnight, come agains” in the spirit in which they were intended. Yeah, it was a little strange that they were so friendly, but it also felt kind of nice, like we were more than just paying customers. It’s just part of the experience at the Empress Theatre, and it’s an experience I haven’t had anywhere else in the valley.

The Foreigner is playing the Empress on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays, through June 9. If you’ve already seen Iron Man twice and you’re looking for something to do, I highly recommend it…