How about the one about a village in Uganda, plagued by poverty and AIDs who had to pay tribute to a mad warlord in order to prevent him from mutilating all their females?
Well how about we roll both stories together and make a musical! Yeh that thud you heard was Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland passing out. Of course Mickey and Judy are both gone so we're stuck with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) and their musical The Book of Mormon.
The play tells the story of a group of Mormon missionaries who travel to Africa to convert the heathen to their own brand of religion. The Uganda they find is full of violence and poverty and sexual abuse. The locals see no point in converting to the white religion as they see nothing in it for themselves. As one character constantly points out, visions of heaven mean little when you have maggots in your scrotum. As one of the Mormons is quick to learn "The Lion King did not present an accurate picture of Africa at all!"
I would call this play irreverent but that would be like calling Satan a guy with a grumpy attitude. This is satire, sometimes teeth bared in your face, sometimes slyly hidden inside of the cheerily scored, cheekily versed songs. Don't get me wrong, there isn't a ton of subtly here; we have a warlord called Buttfuckin Naked and an African expression that the Mormons thinks is like Katuna Matana but really means Fuck You God.
You could concentrate on the material that could offend and you would be well satisfied. These guys are equal opportunity offenders: Religion, Disney, TV, missionaries, sex, women, men, war, health care ... there is something for everyone.
Not surprisingly, The Book of Mormon devotes a lot of its time to harpooning, skinning, eviscerating and devouring the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Church provides the authors with a lot of material; let's be honest here, the Mormon Church, base on their own writings, is a pretty goofy religion. Each scene of the play is prefaced by the story of Mormon founder Joseph Smith and the creation of his church and it's pretty hilarious stuff. Much of the meat of the play's plot revolves around this goofiness and the Elders dispatched around the world to "sell" these stories to people
This is a Mirvish production so the performances throughout are quite solid but the standouts come from Mark Evans and Christopher John O'Neil as the two novice Elders and Samantha Marie Ware as a local village girl, Nabulungi who's name is constantly mispronounced by the Mormons; Nintendo, Neosporin, Neutrogena amont others. Miss Ware has the production's best voice, whether she milking every possible litre of innuendo from the song "Baptize Me" or soaring to the rafters in her homage to the promised land of the Mormons, "Sal Tlay Ka Siti"
Mark Evans portrays Elder Price, the golden boy of the Mormon missionary training centre, to whom everything comes easily and who is looked upon to do great things in Africa. Of course, this being a comedy, things don't quite work out that way. As his world and the visions of himself fall apart, the Elder is visited of a vision of Mormon Hell which is populated by Hitler, Jeffery Dalmer, Ghengis Kahn, Johnny Cochrane (I let OJ get off) and dancing cups of Starbucks coffee.
The true scene stealer of the production, however, is Christopher John O'Neill as Elder Cunningham. A congenital liar who has never actually read the Book of Mormon, he is initially perceived as Elder Price's sidekick. As Cunningham tells Price "You're Frodo and I'm Sam!" But as the mission begins to fall apart, it is Cunningham with his vivid imagination who saves the day; he reinterprets the Book of Mormon for the villagers, populating the already goofy parables with hobbits and Yoda and characters from Star Trek. O'Neill is a comedic tour de force, filling the stage with energy and momentum, able to show off his physical skills even to us up in the cheap seats
There is actually a form of message in all this madness and it has to do with that faith is faith, belief is belief, and perhaps the intent is more important than the method. But that never gets in the way of the true intent of this musical: To make you pee your pants with laughter. Book of Mormon is flat out funny, my jaws literally were aching when I left the Princess of Wales theatre.
It's pretty fair to say that this is one of the funniest productions to visit Toronto in a long time; they are predicting a sell out and I can't disagree with that. This is a touring production so it's run will be limited.
Tickets will likely be difficult to find but perhaps you could pray ... like, to Yoda.
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