The Book of Mormon

Simply put, one of the best musicals I've ever seen.

Definitely the funniest. Even knowing many of the laughs going in, my face hurt.

I've been waiting to see THE BOOK OF MORMON since it premiered in 2011. This musical, penned by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame,  won nine Tony Awards; its cast album is the top selling Broadway recording in over four decades.  Needless to say, I have listened to it several times.

Quite honestly, I wasn't sure I would ever get to pair some visuals with the soundtrack. It's the most expensive ticket in New York right now. A touring company came through Toronto in May of last year and sold out instantly. When I heard about the production arriving at Kitchener's Center in the Square, I admit I pestered Eva. Well, perhaps nagged would be a better word. Let's just say I made her quite aware that this one meant something to me.

The cheapest ticket was almost a hundred bucks. That meant something else to both of us. Turn It Off, Ken.

A good friend of ours inherited two tickets, and then got a boyfriend for one of them. Eva bought a ticket for me for Christmas. I was amazed she was able to get one only two rows behind Ande's pair. In any event, that's how I ended up accompanying Ande and Tim downtown this afternoon.

They were demanding a warlord's ransom for parking, so we stored our car several blocks away for free and walked instead. Before long we were settling down and the curtain went up.

(Aside to Craig: the book did not mention a trumpet player, only keyboards, bass, percussion, and programmers. Yet I assure you somebody  was playing a trumpet. It was not programmed because I heard it warming up and it was easily discernible in several (top f and g!) places. Consider me puzzled.) 

Parker calls his play "an atheist's love letter to religion". As you would expect from the creators of South Park and Team America: World Police,  it is profane. Shockingly so. The central number in the first act is an extended middle finger to the Almighty (Chicago cast here, and I warn you: people of faith WILL find this offensive).

What you don't expect, and what exists in spades beneath the profanity...is profundity. Even that cheerfully blasphemous number right out of  The Lion King gets the audience thinking:

"If you don't like what we say
Try living here a couple days
Watch all your friends and family die
Hasa Diga Eebowai!
...
Here's the butcher, he has AIDS
Here's the teacher, she has AIDS
Here's the doctor, he has AIDS
Here's my daughter, she has aaaaaaaa......
Wonderful disposition
She's all I have left in the world
And if either of you lays a hand on her...
I will give you mu AIDS!"

The Ugandans have no use for Mormonism or any religion...until Elder Cunningham twists his Scriptures into something more relevant to their lives full of poverty, war, disease (the village doctor has a habit of popping up at inopportune times -- is there really an opportune time? -- and singing "I have maggots in my scrotum!") and rampant female circumcision.  An inveterate fabulist, Cunningham sprinkles his doctrine with so many pop culture references that it's soon completely unintelligible--the point being, of course, that it was that way all along. The musical pokes incessantly at some of the more asinine beliefs of the LDS church...but it also is a remarkably touching treatise on the nature of belief itself, its purpose, and its power.

The cast is uniformly excellent, in a couple of cases arguably better than that of the original Broadway show. I was most impressed by Christopher John O'Neill (Elder Cunningham)  and Alexandra Ncube (Nabulungi).  Dazzling choreography, sizzling music, marred in a couple of places by sound that was a titch out of balance.

I found it most interesting that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has ads on the playbill covers ("You've Seen The Play, Now Read The Book"); upon exiting, we the audience were confronted streetside with actual Mormons distributing actual tracts. The LDS church initially protested the musical on Broadway; this approach is much more intelligent.  They claim to have gotten at least one convert from it. 

I believe ("I Believe") them. As I say, the faith on top is an object of relentless ridicule, but the idea of faith is presented as a good and powerful thing--so long as you don't insist on taking things literally.

All in all, a great afternoon at the theatre.  Thank you, Eva, for the best Christmas present I have received  in many years. And thank you, Ande and Tim, for allowing me to join you.