By Brian Cox
Legal News
The astounding appeal of “The Book of Mormon” rises from two contradictory characteristics: It is like many other Broadway musicals you’ve seen and it is unlike anything you’ve ever seen in a Broadway musical.
The show is both familiar and foreign.
And it is that uncommon capacity to contain multiple and conflicting personalities at any given time that is the source of the show’s brilliance. It can be profane and profound; sacrilegious and devout; satirical and sincere; crude and sweet. Sometimes all within the span of a lyric.
It is at all times, however, charmingly subversive.
“The Book of Mormon,” now playing through March 24 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, was written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the irreverent animated television series “South Park,” and Robert Lopez, who also was a co-creator behind the Tony-award winning musical “Avenue Q.”
So anyone in the theater not expecting some foul language and offensive behavior simply didn’t do their homework.
But “The Book of Mormon” is not content with being merely raucous and rude. Its creators had far higher ambitions. More than a satirical take on the Mormon religion, the show is also a parody of the vintage Broadway musicals that inspire it.
At the heart of the musical’s story is a mission. Elder Price (Mark Evans) is a Mormon youth ready to set out on his obligatory two-year missionary tour. Confident and nearly bursting with energy to convert, Elder Price is hopeful he will be sent to proselytize in the city of his dreams: Orlando. So he is disappointed to learn he and his mission companion, the socially awkward and habitual liar Elder Cunningham (Christopher John O’Neill), are bound for a small village in Uganda. The pair are ill-prepared for what they find there: rampant AIDS, a murderous warlord, and the genital mutilation of women.
Great comedic fare, isn’t it?
But “The Book of Mormon” brilliantly finds space for the audience to laugh at these awful subjects by comforting them with a storyline and music that could be lifted out of almost any animated Disney musical.
The connection “The Book of Mormon” wants to make between the Mormon religion and the world of Disney, in fact, is at times bold and striking. At the outset of the show, the Mormon missionaries meet before a backdrop of the towering spires of the Salt Lake Temple. The second act begins with a similar backdrop, only this time it’s of the Magic Kingdom Castle in Orlando.
One number is a direct send-up to the Disney classic “Hakuna Matata” from “The Lion King.” Only when the villagers sing “Hasa Diga Eebowai” it is not a phrase that means “no worries,” but a vile curse hurled at God.
Later, when Elder Cunningham is preparing to baptize a young woman named Nabulungi (the delightful Samantha Marie Ware), the romantic satire “Baptize Me” draws out memories of “Kiss the Girl” from “The Little Mermaid.”
Other musical numbers are take-offs of Broadway songs that have entered the popular consciousness. The fast-talking, storytelling style of “All-American Prophet” is reminiscent of “You Got Trouble” from “The Music Man” (and the audience can draw its own conclusions about the parallel drawn between the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and Professor Henry Hill, a consummate conman.)
In the second act, there’s the big climax, “Joseph Smith American Moses,” in which the Ugandan villagers reinterpret the story of Joseph Smith ala the retelling of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in “The King and I.”
And earlier in the second act, when Elder Price is feeling guilt over his decision to leave Uganda and make his way to Orlando, he has a “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” that smacks of “The Dream” from “Fiddler on the Roof.”
It is this familiarity with the musical’s elements that offer the audience a feeling of comfort even if they are uncomfortable at times laughing when they think they shouldn’t.
A winner of nine Tony awards, including Best Musical, “The Book of Mormon” is an astounding show. Not just for its music, its set design, the high caliber of talent and its entertainment value. It is astounding because unlike any other musical before it, it offers multiple layers of meaning and interpretation that make it a more complex show than your spectacular-yet-typical Broadway “romp.”
Ticket prices for the Detroit engagement of “The Book of Mormon” start at $49 (includes facility fees and parking in the Fisher Building surface lot or outdoor parking structure. Tickets can be bought at the Fisher Theatre box office, all Ticketmaster locations, by phone at 1-800-982-2787, and online at www.ticketmaster.com or www.broadwayindetroit.com.
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