– By Cate Marquis –
The hilarious musical “The Book of Mormon” returns to the Fox with all the rude, irreverent, laugh-out-loud satiric humor you would expect from the guys who brought us “South Park,” Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Joined by Robert Lopez, one of the creators of the equally irreverent musical “Avenue Q,” this triumvirate of jokers created a hilarious adult musical satire inspired by the Mormons Parker and Stone grew up with in Colorado.
“The Book of Mormon” is definitely not a family-friendly show but it is uproariously funny, filled with catching songs with satiric lyrics and poking fun at human foibles as well as gentle teasing about some of the more far-fetched seeming aspects of Mormon beliefs, but ultimately ending with a message of human kindness and understanding. Like many Broadway shows after George Floyd, the musical underwent some revisions from when it was last here in 2013, putting more focus on the African villagers than just the missionaries, and giving the villagers more agency.
After opening with a brief scene about part of the Book of Mormon (the religious text, not the musical), the musical kicks off with the song “Hello,” with doorbell-ringing young Mormons, dressed in identical white shirts and black pants, eager to tell whoever answers the door all about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The scene is young future missionaries at a training center, preparing for their two-year mission, that marks their passage into adulthood by sending them out into the world to find new converts. They are paired with mission brother, and sent to a distant destination, which can be anywhere, something the newly-minted “Elders” sing about in “Two By Two.”
The shining student at the training center is 18-year-old Kevin Price, now Elder Price (Sam McLellan). Everyone expects great things from handsome young Elder Price – including Price himself. Price is certain he will be sent to the mission location he’s been dreaming about and praying for since he was a little boy – Orlando, Florida. Instead he is paired with the least-promising trainee, Elder Arnold Cunningham (Sam Nackman), a chubby slub of a guy with sci-fi and fantasy movie obsession and a bad habit of making up things that aren’t true. Their destination? A small village in Uganda.
Cunningham is thrilled with the pairing – noting that he’s a follower and all he has to do to succeed is follow Price, and he even imagines Africa as a “Lion King” adventure. Price is disappointed it’s not Orlando, but determined to succeed, taking the assignment as a test of his faith, which he sings about with his new pal Elder Cunningham in “You and Me (But Mostly Me).”
Landing in Africa, the pair is immediately robbed and finds life there more harsh and impoverished than they imagined, with AIDS, war lords, forced female genital mutilation and violence. They are greeted by Mafala (Lamont J. Whitaker) and they learn the village is particularly threatened by a brutal warlord who calls himself General Butt F**king Naked (Dewight Braxton Jr.). But the villagers tune out their troubles by singing “Hasa Diga Eebowai.” Elder Cunningham sings along to merrily, thinking it means something like the Lion King’s “Hakuna Mata” until he learns it really means “F U God.”
Mafala’s pretty teen daughter Nabulungi (Keke Nesbitt) leads Price and Cunningham to the house where the other Mormon missionaries, including leader Elder McKinley (Sean Casey Flanagan), are waiting for them. They then learn that the missionaries have not been able to convert even one villager.
The musical then follows Elders Price and Cunningham as they try to convert the villagers by telling them the founding story of the Mormon faith. It doesn’t go well and Price struggles with the mission, and he and Cunningham also have their issues. Things go a bit off the rails when Cunningham, left to tell the villagers the story of the Book of Mormon on his own, adds some embellishments, with songs “Man Up” and “Making Things Up Again.” Throughout the show, there are periodic slightly tongue-in-cheek reenactments of scenes from the Book of Mormon, with the angel Moroni (Sean Casey Flanagan, again) and the Israelite descendant Mormon (Vance Klassen) in ancient New England, and Joseph Smith (Trevor Dorner) later digging up the Gold Plates from Jesus that Mormon buried.
The Mormon teasing is gentle rather than mean but still pointed enough. One of the funniest songs is “Turn It Off,” in which Elder McKinley tells Elder Price about a nifty little Mormon trick to turn off unpleasant thoughts “like a light bulb,” and later sings about the “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream.” Price tells the villagers about the story in the Book of Mormon in the song “All-American Prophet,” although he eventually also starts to sing about himself. Cunningham tries to reassure Price of his loyalty, “like Sam to Frodo,” in “I Am Here for You.” Meanwhile, Nabulungi thinks Salt Lake City sounds like heaven, and sings about it in “Sal Tlay Ka Siti.” And those are just in the first act.
It is all irreverent and side-splitting funny in the “South Park” style, and all ends up, not exactly like you expect, but with a warm ending nonetheless.
The comic acting is spot on, with every role near-perfect. Sam Nackman as Elder Cunningham carries a lot of the comic weight in the role originated by Josh Gad on Broadway, and Sam McLellan does well as Elder Price, whose experiences in Africa lead to a crisis of faith and confidence. But everyone does their part well in this show, including Dewight Braxton Jr. as the scary, bloodthirsty General, left in a state of befuddlement after hearing the Mormon story.
“The Book Of Mormon” is a don’t-miss musical comedy, at the Fabulous Fox too briefly, through Sunday, Apr. 14.
© Cate Marquis
