The Book of Mormon

[mwc]

     The wife and I drove down to San Diego to see this a couple of days ago.  I like South Park and all so I figured that this would be worth a try.  My wife wanted to see it and kept telling me how I wouldn't want to see it but I'm not quite sure where she got that idea (other than I didn't want to see Phantom of the Opera I guess but I think this is a bit different given what I know about it).  Anyhow, I really didn't know much about the show other than it was a musical and the obvious title and my wife said it "Made fun of Mormons" so she really had nothing to add but what the hell, right?

 

     Without giving anything away the show is a musical comedy about two young Mormons who are on their mission.  The show starts with them at the Mormon training, getting their assignment and then following them on their adventure.  It's got a lot of catchy tunes and touches on a lot of elements of belief and faith.  There's a South Park show on Mormons and this show borrows some elements from it but, fortunately, does not just rehash those ideas.  For the most part the show focused on Mormons and Mormonism, which most of audience was on-board for, but at points they went wider and some folks in the audience (I can think of one in particular) who didn't care for these things since it caused a problem for their personal sacred-cow.  A quick glance around to see who was applauding for what kind of revealed who was offended at any given time.  There's one song that starts out strong but takes a turn and loses folks because of a reveal in it.  I loved it but I'm a bad guy don't you know.  The show was good and the people in the show were just top-notch.  I wish I knew their names and all to give them all credit but I'm just not good enough with names that way.  There's three main people, the two missionaries and a young gal, and they're all wonderful as are all the supporting cast.

 

     If you have a chance to see this show I would highly recommend it.  It's a good time at the theater (something I'm not known to do or say).  I understand they're making this into a movie which I imagine should be good as well but will have to be quite a bit different than the stage show given what I saw since it had very little spoken dialog.  So see the movie if that's your only choice.  I'll probably give it a go to see how it compares.  I'm sure it will be considerably cheaper than the musical as well.  But, again, if you have the chance see the musical. 

 

          mwc