Book of Mormon Performance Review

The Book of Mormon Performance Review
April 2, 2 PM
The Aronoff Center, Cincinnati, OH.

The Book of Mormon is an incredible and award winning Broadway musical written by the creators of South Park. This musical is absolutely dedicated to humor, and it does its job very well. Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez do an incredible job at being totally insulting and spectacular at the same time.

The Musical's premise is this: Two Mormon boys are sent on their two year mission to Uganda to baptize people into the church but when they arrive and meet the other Mormons already sent there, they discover that they have yet to bring a single African to the church. They experience incredible culture shock, filled with profanity and aids and war lords. One of the two main characters uses his mind for white lies and tells all of the Africans that God talks about Aids and their other specific problems directly in the bible, which makes them gain a bit of appreciation for the text, and many of them agree to join the church. When the directors of the mission come to visit Uganda after their great successes, the Africans perform their rendition of the Book Of Mormon for the director and he is horrified. This is understandable due to the profanity and sex talk and the lies about the story. The boys are fired from their mission positions and are sent home, but the Africans continue to tell the story the way they were taught, Star Wars references and all.

This performance was not with the original cast, but I have no doubt that the original cast was any more or less amazing than this one. The choreography was impeccable. The music, both instrumental and vocal, could and did give me chills many times. The sets were obviously of a professional level, with incredibly lighting, set changes, screens, and bonuses like fog. At one point, one of the screens did not want to come down, and the show was delayed by about 5 minutes after intermission. This was the only hiccup, and it was not of anyone's fault. This performance was above a professional level. 

When you attempt to analyze the language choices in this musical, you could go on for days. The script is incredibly filled with all types of humor, from plain jokes, to satire, to puns, and then to hilarious pop culture references. The humor comes largely from the poking fun at religion and its participants. In order to watch this musical, you could not allow yourself to be offended. Every curse word I've ever heard of was used at least 40 times, and the mention of sex was constant. The actors were invested in their roles. The Mormon boys spoke very cleanly and with enunciation. Their voices were happy and innocent. In comparison, the Africans spoke very openly, loudly, and with honest emotion. 

In addition to the language choices, the societal connections can be analyzed. In the song "Turn it Off," the missionaries speak of horrible things like domestic abuse, cancer, and the worst of all, homosexuality. (haha.) The song's basic idea is to crush all of these feelings, and "turn them off." This song addresses how the church is often said to ignore large issues and answer everything with "God has a plan."

Stereotypes and racism are almost constant. When the boys are first told they will go to Uganda, Elder Cunningham asks where that is. When told it is in Africa, he responds with "Ooh! Like the Lion King!" Racism comes in when they boys meet the female main character in Africa, whose name is Nabulungi, and they can't grasp the pronunciation. For the rest of the musical, she is addressed as random things that start with N. Neosporin, Neutrogena, and Neiman Marcus to name a few. This disregard for other cultures can also be considered a commentary on the close mindedness of the church.

This musical was incredible. I loved every second of it. The soundtrack is played in my car at least three times a week. I have no critiques. This performance replaced Wicked as my favorite musical. 10 out of 10.