Hasa Diga Eebowai

The fourth in a (very) occasional series of musical reviews...

The Book Of Mormon : Prince Of Wales Theatre

We had some theatre vouchers from Nana for Xmas ('21) and I'd heard this was good and rude - and, quite frankly, that was enough to convince me this was the show we needed to go and see.  We knew so little else about it that, at lunch thirty minutes before we were due to see it, the lovely Mrs Reed said to me "it's a musical, isn't it?" - to which I confidently replied "Yes.  Well, I think so, anyway".

So we found ourselves in a surprisingly full theatre at a surprising time (a Friday matinee) knowing surprisingly little about what we were about to see.  Let's hope it's not confusing, eh...

Well, firstly I can report it's most definitely a musical.  And I can also report that it's very rude.  It's also good and very, very funny.  We start at Mormon training school, with a bunch of new recruits getting paired up and learning where they were going to be placed and, wouldn't you know it, we get an odd couple pairing of Elder Price (the all-American boy) and Elder Cunningham (the awkward nerd) who get the dream placement of...Uganda.

And, it's fair to say, misadventures occur from this point on involving (but not limited to) General Butt Fucking Naked, "maggots in my scrotum", genital mutilation, "Sal Tlay Ka Siti", Darth Vader, Yoda, Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Jeffrey Dahmer and, of course, people having sex with frogs.  Yes, I think it's fair to say that this musical goes to places that most other musicals (for some reason) decide against going to.

But, it does so within an often amusingly contrasting standard musical format - there are belted out solo numbers, sweet duets, harmonious ensemble numbers, tap dancing routines and all the other clichés you might expect to see.  But, despite its snarky South Park roots, you never get the impression that it's coming from anywhere other than a place of respect - there's a lot of love for musicals in there.  

And the cast are undoubtedly talented - Dom Simpson and Conner Peirson have great chemistry as the odd couple and they are ably supported by everybody else.  If I had to call out others, I'd pick Leanne Robinson who is the trusting Nabulungi (she has a lovely voice) and Steven Webb as Elder McKinley who deals with his homosexuality in the time-honoured religious fashion of completely denying it, but has some zinging lines to deliver in the process.  I'd also say the set and scenery is good without being spectacular - it does its job without being distracting.

The Wikipedia entry for the show is interesting - I didn't know that Robert Lopez (the non-South Park creator) wrote Avenue Q (along with Jeff Marx who was also involved in this in the early stages).  Robert, Matt and Trey spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money developing this show over a period of five years, with it opening on Broadway in 2011 starring (amongst others) Josh Gad (Olaf in Frozen).

One interesting point raised by Wikipedia is the question of racism - it's fair to say there are some problematic elements to the show on this front.  A lot of the "African" characters are presented as very pragmatic (certainly when compared with the Mormons) but part of the reason for this pragmatism is that they're too busy dealing with the atrocious life they have, troubled as they are by AIDS, warlords, FGM and all the other problems that EVERYONE in Africa obviously has to endure on a daily basis.  Apparently, the show's a lot better than it used to be though (make of that what you will).

Much like the racism issue, the question as to whether the show is offensive to Mormons (or other religions) is not best addressed by me - it certainly goes to great lengths to point out the ridiculous nature of many of the central concepts of the Mormon faith, but (I don't feel) the church comes out of it badly.  I'm sure others would disagree, but the church in general seems reasonably happy with the publicity.

Personally speaking, I do think you're on dodgy ground if you take any of this show as realistic (see also South Park) but I totally realise that others will disagree.  There are some points where I think they take things too far, but they were less numerous than I was expecting.  And to balance this out, I'd have to say the laugh out loud moments were far more frequent than I was expecting - there are some very funny scenes in this and some of them go on for a lot longer than you usually get in such things.  Coupled with some great songs from a talented cast, this was a thoroughly enjoyable production - maybe think twice about taking your parents to it though.

Heathers
Just For One Day