Broadway at TPAC
The Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is a famously controversial musical comedy, featuring the repeated punchline “I have maggots in my scrotum” and a villain named “General Butt-F**king-Naked.” This show from the creators of South Park and a co-composer of Frozen premiered in 2011 and is still on Broadway. The show is a deliberately problematic depiction of Mormonism and Africa. The satirical comedy is about two young Mormon missionaries who are sent out on their two-year mission. Hoping to be sent to Orlando, Florida, Elder Price is disappointed to find that he and his nerdy partner, Elder Cunningham, have been assigned to Uganda instead. They arrive and immediately get their luggage stolen and are treated to the welcome song “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” which means (in fake Swahili) “Fuck you, God.” Their white-savior/Lion King expectations are dashed. The local Ugandans struggle with threats of female genital mutilation from a nearby warlord, while Elder Price feels doubt about his mission. Elder Cunningham’s predilection for lying gets his conversion attempts surprising results.
This show is 15 years old, but there have been some updates to it. In 2021 there were changes to make the portrayal of the Ugandans less racist, and the 15 Year Anniversary Performance earlier this year saw an alteration to “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream,” where Jeffery Dahmer has been changed to Jeffery Epstein. When I saw the show, the audience laughed during the entire show, but it laughed so hard during each Jeffery Epstein joke that the next verses were inaudible.
I attended the Broadway Tour’s opening night, June 2nd, which started twenty minutes late. The doors to the hall weren’t opened to the full audience until after 7:30, when the show was supposed to have begun. We weren’t told what the holdup was, but the audio that night was surprisingly rough, with imbalances between the orchestra and singers and between singers on stage. We couldn’t hear the delivery of several lines because the timing of the mics was off.
The music is bright and quick-paced, and it’s all comedy. A few of the songs are real earworms. The first act had two of my favorite songs from the show, “Turn it Off,” and “All-American Prophet,” but the second act had a faster-moving plot with more comedic moments (as well as the wonderfully hilarious song “I Believe”). The show’s greatest moments of cleverness and hilarity for me were when dealing with Mormon teachings and the history of the Mormon church. The grandness of their claims and their incongruity with North American history, the posturing of Joseph Smith, Mormon and Moroni made me laugh every time they appeared.
The choreography is quirkily ridiculous, using square, energetic rigidity for the Mormons, and some of them add an incongruent layer of stereotypical gay flair to this: Craig Franke as the repressed Elder McKinley is hilarious when singing “Turn it Off” and every other moment he is on stage. The costumes are either Mormon missionary outfits or impoverished people’s attire. I had wondered if there would be any difficulty for the audience to tell the Mormon’s apart (white guys with the same haircut in matching outfits), but this doesn’t turn out to be an issue. The three named Mormon characters are easily distinguishable by their build and demeanor.
The show makes fun use of backdrops, and it has many, sometimes using a specific background for very brief periods of time. This adds literal layers to the scenery, feels more classic than a projection, and adds a corny element that works perfectly with the nature of the show. The sets themselves are simple, mainly walls and doorways, and the props are mostly minimal.
The cast is great, especially understudy Rayna J. who played Nabulungi on June 2nd, her strong beautiful voice working perfectly in the goofy ballads given to her (especially “Sal Tlay Ka Siti”), balancing sincerity and satire to give her jokes the perfect landing. Ethan Davenport has a capable voice and makes Elder Price’s self-obsorbed naivete comically obnoxious, and in excellent contrast with Jacob Aune’s Elder Cunningham, who bumbles around as a crystallization of the 2000’s teen loser.
A personal caveat: I will admit that I’ve never watched South Park, and I went into the show blind with possibly over-hyped expectations (I went with people who have seen the show on Broadway and absolutely love it). Don’t get me wrong, the show is very funny, but my subjective sense of humor is slightly different than The Book of Mormon’s. Shock humor just isn’t my particular type. I find it loses its power to make me laugh the more it’s repeated, and sometimes feels flatly edgy, like a middle-schooler’s sex jokes. The show is certainly a very successful comedy, but perhaps less mind-blowing than newcomers like me might expect. Nevertheless, it is certainly worth a watch, and I recommend seizing this opportunity to watch it live here in Nashville!
The Book of Mormon will be at TPAC’s Jackson Hall through June 7th, see their website for tickets and more information.
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A Nashville native and MTSU graduate, Grace Krenz is a reader, a writer, and an arts enthusiast. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two children.
