‘Mormon’ lacks satirical punch
The Book of Mormon (out of 4) By Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone. Directed by Casey Nicholaw & Parker. Until June 9 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W. 416872-1212.
The Book of Mormon opened a soldout Toronto run to an enthusiastic audience at the Princess of Wales Theatre on Thursday night and I still didn’t like it. For the second time. When it opened on Broadway in 2011, I was part of a very unique fraternity: there were only three major theatre critics in North America who didn’t like The Book of
Mormon and I was one of them. At the time, I felt it was because I was expecting something more savage and scathing from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the men who had shocked and delighted me so many times on South Park, but were content here to settle for glib jokes and satire that was truly toothless. I entered the theatre this time prepared to give it another chance, but the show was only a few minutes old when I felt myself coming down with another case of Mormon-itis. The symptoms are easily recognizable: stereotypical comic characters, one-joke songs, easy targets and inconsistent tone. By now, I’m sure no one will consider it a spoiler if I tell you the plot is about two mismatched young Mormons who are forced together and sent on a mission to Africa. Elder Price is type A with a vengeance: robotically handsome, beady eyed and insanely egotistical. His partner, Elder Cunningham, is the born schleppy loser, overweight and needy. When I first reviewed the show I said all you had to do was cast Bradley Cooper and Seth Rogen in the leads and the movie was a done deal. You can guess the obvious hu- mour to be mined from Mormon missionaries colliding with tribal Africans, but Parker, Stone and Robert Lopez don’t play it totally straight. They introduce a villainous warlord who wants all females circumcised and shoots anyone dead who stands in his way. That’s heavy stuff, but they treat it for laughs, as they do the fact that most of the Africans are suffering from AIDS. If there was some grand satiric point behind it, I might have bought it, but it’s just in the name of increasingly cheap jokes. While I wasn’t in love with the show in New York, there was a certain balance to the production that seems to have vanished with this touring version. Mark Evans, as Elder Price, lacks what I called the “unswerving intensity and cleancut charm” that the creator of the role, Andrew Rannells, brought to the part, and the rest of the Mormon chorus, so carefully delineated on Broadway, now just play a tedious series of gay stereotypes.
On the plus side, Christopher John O’Neill makes Elder Cunningham absolutely lovable in his geekiness and you root for him throughout.
And as the African heroine whose name everyone keeps forgetting, Samantha Marie Ware triumphs over some really clichéd material to make a strong impression. The show was co-directed by Parker and Casey Nicholaw, with Nicholaw providing choreography that keeps it all moving snappily. You may have the illusion you’re seeing a bright, snappy show, but it’s theatrical cotton candy that melts in your mouth before you can even taste it.
Broadway was so hungry for a hit, that it greeted The Book of Mormon with hysterical hosannas when all it deserved was a few polite laughs.
You might very well be entertained by it, but I doubt you’ll remember it.
And will I go see it a third time? Hell, no.