The Book of Mormon
Dec. 30th, 2018 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustA few weeks ago, I finally got to see The Book of Mormon at the Lyric Theatre.
I'm not a huge fan of South Park style humour, but I am a huge fan of musicals. And from what I'd heard, this was a very good musical. And it delivered pretty much exactly what I expected.
Some of the humour was very dark, and a lot of the humour was very crude. But the songs were full of energy and musicality, and the story was remarkably hopeful. (One of the Avenue Q creators cowrote this!) Anyway, I enjoyed myself a great deal.
One of the show's creators described it as "an atheist's love letter to religion". And that fits perfectly. It's optimistic about humanity and the role of faith. It means that for all its outrageous humour, it's not actually very subversive. While it ridicules bizarre beliefs and restrictive rules, and expresses suspicion about the veracity of the founder, it softpedals any serious critique of religion.
It goes for the "does it matter if it's true if it helps people?" approach. But that doesn't address the hard questions: why unbelievers are condemned to eternal damnation, how the promise of salvation is about saving souls rather than saving lives, what about crimes in the name of religion, let alone the problem of evil. But I guess it's overly harsh to expect it to, when these are questions that philosophers have wrestled with for centuries - and this is, after all, a musical meant to entertain.
Standout number: "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream".
Most uncomfortable song: "Baptize Me".
Favourite familiar face: Bert LaBonte as Mafala Hatimbi (previously appearing as the best thing in the musical of An Officer and a Gentleman).
Most surprising trivia: The character General Butt-Fucking Naked was based on a real warlord. His name? General Butt Naked.
References to other musicals: I loved that "You and Me (But Mostly Me)" riffs off "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. That "Hasa Diga Eebowai" is a clear parody of "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King. That "I Believe" is inspired by "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music (especially the line "A warlord that shoots people in the face. What's so scary about that?").
Favourite moment:
"Salt Lake City isn't an actual place. It's an idea. A metaphor."
"All the stories the prophet has told us... are just metaphors."
"Yeah. You don't think a man actually fucked a frog, do you? That's fucking stupid."
I'm not a huge fan of South Park style humour, but I am a huge fan of musicals. And from what I'd heard, this was a very good musical. And it delivered pretty much exactly what I expected.
Some of the humour was very dark, and a lot of the humour was very crude. But the songs were full of energy and musicality, and the story was remarkably hopeful. (One of the Avenue Q creators cowrote this!) Anyway, I enjoyed myself a great deal.
One of the show's creators described it as "an atheist's love letter to religion". And that fits perfectly. It's optimistic about humanity and the role of faith. It means that for all its outrageous humour, it's not actually very subversive. While it ridicules bizarre beliefs and restrictive rules, and expresses suspicion about the veracity of the founder, it softpedals any serious critique of religion.
It goes for the "does it matter if it's true if it helps people?" approach. But that doesn't address the hard questions: why unbelievers are condemned to eternal damnation, how the promise of salvation is about saving souls rather than saving lives, what about crimes in the name of religion, let alone the problem of evil. But I guess it's overly harsh to expect it to, when these are questions that philosophers have wrestled with for centuries - and this is, after all, a musical meant to entertain.
Standout number: "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream".
Most uncomfortable song: "Baptize Me".
Favourite familiar face: Bert LaBonte as Mafala Hatimbi (previously appearing as the best thing in the musical of An Officer and a Gentleman).
Most surprising trivia: The character General Butt-Fucking Naked was based on a real warlord. His name? General Butt Naked.
References to other musicals: I loved that "You and Me (But Mostly Me)" riffs off "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. That "Hasa Diga Eebowai" is a clear parody of "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King. That "I Believe" is inspired by "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music (especially the line "A warlord that shoots people in the face. What's so scary about that?").
Favourite moment:
"Salt Lake City isn't an actual place. It's an idea. A metaphor."
"All the stories the prophet has told us... are just metaphors."
"Yeah. You don't think a man actually fucked a frog, do you? That's fucking stupid."
