Acting in good faith
Latter day production of Broadway smash The Book of Mormon hits Auckland with its satirical edge intact.
Because The Book of Mormon – the award-winning musical that has run for almost a decade on Broadway before arriving at Auckland’s Civic – is sweeping in its humour, it doesn’t matter if its audience knows little about the Mormon faith.
This uncompromisingly big production, by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone with co-writer and musician Robert Lopez ( Frozen), is a clever and astute equal-opportunity offender delivered here by a seasoned cast of professional Australian and American actors, some from the original Broadway season.
It has toured Australia to unanimous acclaim for three years, belting out the big ballads, dancing as an ensemble and delivering the often salacious script with unwavering energy.
The show’s premise is the improbability of Mormon beliefs (although by extension those of all faiths), the naivety of missionaries, racial stereotyping and cultural clichés
(the Africa here is all Aids, warlords, poverty and female circumcision), the commodification of religion and more.
It wraps its satire into a hilarious parody of Broadway musicals.
So, when the young and naive missionaries go to Uganda (“It’s not like The Lion King,” whines Elder Price, who wanted Orlando, Florida, as his posting), the production brings out the boy dancers of the chorus, quasi-rock numbers ( Man
Up, because that’s what Jesus did), aching ballads (the young villager who yearns for the promised land of Salt Lake City), songs such as You’re Making Things Up (which might have come from the pen of parodist Allan Sherman) and Grease- like duets.
It’s a musical loaded with rapid-fire cultural references: OJ Simpson, Star Wars, hobbits, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Starbucks, Bono …
But there’s seriousness woven into the hilarity: the impotence of wellintentioned religion in the face of human brutality, the price of torturous personal guilt over perceived sins, the need for belief no matter how naive (the ridiculously funny show-stopping ballad
I Believe) and how racial generalisations can go all ways.
Too often columnists and comedians excuse their opinions using “satire” as a defence for their witlessness. The
Book of Mormon is genuine satire, because its subject is human foibles as much as misplaced faith.
Its writers were never going to be short of material with these subjects to skewer, but wrapping it in a very adult Broadway show is their real achievement.
It’s probably a sin to enjoy The Book of Mormon. But don’t you have to sin to get saved?
There’s seriousness amid the hilarity: the impotence of religion in the face of brutality, the price of personal guilt over perceived sins.
The Book of Mormon, Civic Theatre, Auckland, until April 19.