Book, Music and Lyrics: Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
Director: Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker
When South Park and Team America creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone first announced that they were writing a musical about the Mormons, there was few who doubted that the words shocking and ground breaking would be words used to describe it. Add in the involvement of Robert Lopez, the man behind the music in Avenue Q and you knew also that there would be much talk of boundaries being pushed and taboos being broken.
Thirteen years on from its Broadway debut, and in a world where Little Britain is seen as outdated and offensive rather than edgy, the application of these superlatives to most of the first act of The Book of Mormon seem to be misplaced. Sounding more like the lost attempt to create a musical revival of the ‘Carry on’ movie franchise, it plays through a lot of lazy racial stereotypes as Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, two young Mormons played by Adam Bailey and Sam Glen, are dispatched to a village in Uganda on a mission to convert the natives to the American religion.
There is a considerable amount of laugh out loud moments as the two find themselves in a place far away from the resort in Orlando that Price was expecting the Lord would send them to and fail to bond as lapdog Cunningham looks admiringly at his all-American hero style partner before admitting he has not read the book of Mormon and is also a compulsive liar. There are also some clever, if not exactly shocking, songs such as Price’s ‘Mostly Me’ which captures the narcissism behind his motivations, and ensemble piece ‘Turn it Off’ which reduces disasters to things that happen to other people and sympathy to something that ends when you move into another room.
However, the depiction of the village as a place where you will be robbed as soon as you set foot of the plane, and the villagers as people who live in fear of crazed warlords advocating female genital mutilation, and all either have aids or know someone who does, feels like it is simply going for cheap laughs rather than being the basis of something that is deeply satirical as well as being both scathing about and sympathetic to its targets. Only Nabullungi, played by Nyah Nish, works as a believable character rather than a caricature as Cunningham becomes fascinated with her even as he continually fails to get her name right.
Thankfully, the second act, is the real game changer that still lives up to all of the initial hype that accompanied the show. The comic genius of Parker and Stone comes to the fore as the small character details and plot points dropped into the first act are fleshed out to become the driver of an act that is liberally covered with superbly ridiculous songs and set piece scenes that build on each other to produce a superb climax as the newly converted villagers perform Cunningham’s on-the-hoof and almost completely inaccurate version of the story of ‘Joseph Smith American Moses’ to the senior Elders who are visiting Uganda to witness the miracle conversion that has taken place.
Before that ‘Spooky Mormon Hell Dream’ is a visual delight with razor sharp lyrics that distil all the symptoms and contradictions of religious guilt into five minutes of over the top costumes and choreography, and ‘Baptized’ is an innuendo laden piece that sees Glen and Nish switch from innocence and naivety to lustful and lewd, making the double-entendres clear to the audience but not to themselves. The ending of the show also provides a very neat conclusion completing a narrative arc that you’re unlikely to be aware of until the final song begins.
Bailey, Glen and Nish all give superb performances. As Price, Bailey looks and sounds like a Team America doll brought to life, while Glen takes Cunningham from awkward geeky guy to the people’s saviour in a way that makes this unlikely journey seem like it was inevitable. Nish makes Nabulungi convincing both as the love interest and the person who really wants to believe that Salt Lake City is a place and not a state of mind.
Casey Nicholaw’s ensemble choreography achieves the unique feat of being both nerdy and slick, often at the same time, and Scott Park’s scenic design moves seamlessly across a range of settings from a US Airport to an African Village a camp Hell and more.
Yes, the show does have some uncomfortable moments, and the first act at times is a case study in how definitions of what is dangerous comedy and what is dated has changed in the last decade, but for all this, The Book of Mormon remains a very funny but also very clever show, where the end more than justifies some of the dubious techniques used to get to it.
Runs until 2 November 2024 | Image: Paul Coltas