Review: The Book of Mormon
Note: I saw the show’s 4th preview. It is not fair or logical to judge a production still in previews, so please take these thoughts as you will but remember that the show will change between now and its March 24th opening.
After watching about twenty minutes of Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez’s new musical The Book of Mormon you may find a slight pain in your chest and or face. This is entirely normal. Do not be alarmed. It is simply due to the fact that you have been laughing harder and more constantly than at any single piece of media you have seen in a long time. Months before the show even started Vogue called it “Quite possibly the funniest musical of all time.” How prophetic they were.
More than anything else The Book of Mormon is funny. Funny, funny, funny. But would you expect anything less from the creators of South Park and the co-creator of Avenue Q? It’s riotous joke after riotous joke, unrelenting throughout. Especially those first twenty minutes, but nonetheless constant, balanced, and well paced. It has the signature intelligent satire of South Park while going for broke in offending pretty much everyone. The show brings an onslaught of curse words, obscene gestures, and scatological and sexual humor but manages to find brilliance and poignancy that you just don’t see coming.
And there in lies the genius of The Book of Mormon. Expect as much as you want a loud, over the top comedy. Go in thinking, “Ok, this is going to be funny but it won’t be anything more than some disposable, light entertainment” and you will be surprised by the gut punch waiting for you. As much as it is everything described in the previous paragraph, it is also extremely heartfelt, incredibly well thought out and written, and shockingly sentimental. The characters invite you in and through the use of emotional, relatable music, connections between the audience and the players grows. By the middle of the second act even the most jaded New York theater goer might find themselves sympathizing, even though he or she is as different as it gets from the characters depicted on stage. Forgivable then is an underwritten antagonist that serves no other real purpose than just being a device in the face of our protagonists.
Another surprising element, written at length by preview articles and interviews with the creators, is how tuneful Mormon is. Parker and Stone proved with South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut and Cannibal! The Musical that they have an ear for chipper show tunes. There’s a respect and love for the genre in both of those, though they’re working again on a satirical level. And as much as The Book of Mormon is a send up of the traditional form it is a love letter to it. The show is very much a traditional, classic musical. Almost every number is a big, show stopping production (with a lot of help from the production design and Casey Nicholaw’s down-right-fun direction and choreography). Many songs echo the musicals of yesterday and today, while stepping into their own entity. But don’t expect it to change the art form drastically. Melodically it operates very much in the mainstream of Broadway while the orchestrations and compositions may only slightly remind you of Avenue Q, or those other aforementioned creations.
With such a big, brazen show a lot is left on the actors to confidently and believably deliver the material. Thankfully the cast assembled is mega talented and are able to wisely portray some of the more cartoon-y aspects of the show. Josh Gad is a scene stealer in his lovable loser lead role. Andrew Rannells belts out with the best of them and shows that he can play confident leading man just as well as he can play deranged failure. And Nikki M James is a revelation, being a driving force behind a lot of the real emotion laid beneath the satirical monster. Her “I Wish” number is captivating, funny, and endlessly memorable.
The Book of Mormon is one of the funniest things to come around in a long time, in any medium. Certainly on Broadway. The only two shows in recent memory that can even give it a run for its money in terms of comedy are Avenue Q and The Producers. And it’s certainly not something that is going to be rivaled in that business for a long time.
I would go ahead and declare it Tony worthy right now if only this Broadway season wasn’t so crowded. The coming weeks will see the opening of non-revival musicals such as Catch Me If You Can, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Wonderland, Sister Act, (and perhaps) Spider Man Turn Off The Dark. The fall saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Scottsboro Boys amongst many others. Only time will tell, but my gut tells me odds are good.
TL;DR - Hilarious, heartfelt, great actors, traditional style music, Tony future, Hilarious.
I need to see this.
I’m going tomorrow!! <3
