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The Book of Mormon

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Donny and Marie would not approve.
 
But South Park lovers and fans of filth will no doubt herniate themselves chortling at The Book of Mormon, the shibboleth-shattering Tony and multi-award-winning musical about the Mormon faith and the chowder-headed attempts of missionaries to sell religion to third-world villagers.
 
(l-r) Mark Evans, Derrick Williams (Photo: Joan Marcus)
(l-r) Mark Evans, Derrick Williams (Photo: Joan Marcus)

You can’t have a pinch of prude in you to enjoy The Book of Mormon.  In addition to fusillades of f-bombs, creative team Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone (of South Park and Avenue Q fame) send up everything from female genital mutilation to AIDS and closeted homosexuality. And oh yes, organized religion—and not just the one headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 
Jesus (who makes his entrance in white robes that light up like a cheesy Christmas display and speaks in affected, sissified tones), Jews, Mormons—everybody gets the same cheerfully scatological treatment.
 
Potty-mouthed humor aside, Mormon is cleverly and sharply put together and pays crisply-staged homages to classic musicals and styles.  Astute theatergoers will recognize nods to The King and I, Bye Bye Birdie, Hairspray, The Lion King and other shows.  There’s even a bit of irony in the casting—despite the fact Mormon is miles away from such middlebrow romantic heart-tuggers like The Phantom of the Opera, the role of Mormon faith-founder Joseph Smith and other parts is played by Ron Bohmer, who for years was The Phantom on Broadway and on tour.
 
highlightpencilThe hilarious opening number “Hello,” depicting the familiar door-to-door technique for missionaries shilling the Book of Mormon, sets the stage for what is to come. Punctuated by ding-dong sounds, the white-shirted and black-tied acolytes set to their task with the chipper gung-ho of a barbershop quartet.
 
The plot centers on Elder Price (the seraphim-voiced Mark Evans), a goody-goody (even by Mormon standards) destined for greatness, and Elder Cunningham (the nerdily charismatic Christopher John O’Neill), a clumsy misfit who likes to make stuff up.  The two are paired up for their mission to Uganda—poor Elder Price had his heart set on Orlando—to spread Mormonism to a part of the country plagued by AIDS, poverty and murderous warlords.
 
When Price and Cunningham arrive in the Ugandan village, they think it may not be so bad after all, as the downtrodden but lively citizenry greet the new arrivals with an upbeat song about their philosophy of life called “Hasa Diga Eebowai” that is comically reminiscent of “Hakuna Matata” from Lion King.  Only here the message is not “no worries” but something unprintable that essentially flips the bird to the Almighty.
 
The villagers sunnily inventory their woes—AIDS, sex with infants (a folk myth reputed to cure AIDS), forced female clitorectomies, and violent repression at the hands of the General (a strikingly sinister Corey Jones)—whose full name can’t be repeated here.  Price is horrified and wants to be transferred to the mecca of Orlando, Cunningham is smitten with the village elder’s daughter Nabulungi (a radiant and epic-voiced Alexandra Ncube), who, in a running gag, “texts” with a manual typewriter, and tries to make a go of it.
 
In the goofily inspiring song “Man Up,” Cunningham summons up the cujones to reach the villagers. He instills hope in the people by peppering the Book of Mormon with references to Star Wars, the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and other pop culture goodies.  Meanwhile, Price has a crisis of faith shown in “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream,” an outrageously profane number straight out of South Park where the doomed cavort with and are sexually violated by Satan, Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer and other damned souls.

Recommended
THE BOOK OF MORMON
Closes March 9, 2014
The Hippodrome
12 North Eutaw Street
Baltimore, MD
2 hours, 40 minutes with 1 intermission
Details and Tickets 

Cunningham is so successful that the whole village gets baptized—Nabulungi is the first, seen in the sweetly sexy “my first time” love duet “Baptize Me” that owes much to “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid. This attracts the attention of the mission president (Ron Bohmer) and the people put on a show about the story of the founding of the Mormon faith for the dignitaries—a la “The Cabin of Uncle Tom” sequence from The King and I­­­—only a zillion times raunchier, depicting Joseph Smith having biblical knowledge with a frog and the Mormon women happily creating big families with Mormon men possessing the phallic attributes of Secretariat.

 
Oddly enough, polygamy is not discussed in this no-holds barred satire of Mormonism.  But everything else is fair game, particularly the fact that most sacred texts often don’t make a lick of sense and to take every word literally sets up any organized religion for confusion and rampant sophistry.
 
If you roll with it, Mormon is great forbidden fun.  If not, you may be joining the sour-pussed patrons exiting the show at intermission.
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National Tour of The Book of Mormon .Book, music and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone .Directed by Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker . Presented by the Hippodrome Theatre . Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

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Other reviews:

Tim Smith . Baltimore Sun

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