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| The Book of Mormon |
Spoiler Alert: If you are still planning on seeing the Book of Mormon you may want to avoid this post. Continue at your own discretion.
Never before has female circumcision, dying of dysentery or having aids been so funny. It's difficult to walk that line between offense and hilarity, but it's something Trey and Matt have done for years. The best part of the musical was the windup. For the first few scenes it really felt like a happy go lucky musical if for no other purpose than to lull the "musical crowd" into a confidence and then hit them over the head with it when they got to Africa.
Amazingly excepting intentional exaggeration, they stuck to the facts of Mormon Church. Clearly they were laying into them a bit about said secret Mormon plates and other things, but nothing worse than what they already had. With all this ribbing going on, the Mormon church took it quite well. In fact, they bought 3 full page adds in the playbill.
I am absolutely in love with Trey Parker's composition skills. Melodies, layers, and comedy built together. As with the South Park movie, during the first half he put together all the musical themes together in a montage of overlaying melodies where each character was discussing their motivations. The lyrics of most of the songs were very South Park like. Raunchy numbers about dysentery and fuck you god, were well received. Sadly, my favorite song from their Joseph Smith episode (Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon dum dum dum dum dum).
Never before has female circumcision, dying of dysentery or having aids been so funny. It's difficult to walk that line between offense and hilarity, but it's something Trey and Matt have done for years. The best part of the musical was the windup. For the first few scenes it really felt like a happy go lucky musical if for no other purpose than to lull the "musical crowd" into a confidence and then hit them over the head with it when they got to Africa.
Amazingly excepting intentional exaggeration, they stuck to the facts of Mormon Church. Clearly they were laying into them a bit about said secret Mormon plates and other things, but nothing worse than what they already had. With all this ribbing going on, the Mormon church took it quite well. In fact, they bought 3 full page adds in the playbill.
I am absolutely in love with Trey Parker's composition skills. Melodies, layers, and comedy built together. As with the South Park movie, during the first half he put together all the musical themes together in a montage of overlaying melodies where each character was discussing their motivations. The lyrics of most of the songs were very South Park like. Raunchy numbers about dysentery and fuck you god, were well received. Sadly, my favorite song from their Joseph Smith episode (Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon dum dum dum dum dum).
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| The Book of Mormon |
Before the show I was talking to a friend and she mentioned she had heard mixed reviews. Some people loved it, others were horribly offended. I really do have to say, if at this point you go and don't know what you're getting in to, that's your own fault. In any case, our seats were kind of towards the back, so I kept an eye out to see if anyone would walk out. Not surprisingly, everyone stayed.
To sum up, good show, raunchy, offensive, funny and it beats the hell out of "Cannibal the Musical."
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