Jesus, What a Show!

A few notes on "The Book of Mormon" a decade later

As theatergoers go, I’m pretty much in the tourist category. For most of my life, I’ve been a Broadway suburbanite, seeing big musicals long after their premiere—Cats, Mamma Mia, that kind of thing. I lacked the sophistication, resources, and ingenuity of my peers who found a way to see a lot of shows. (My own passion has been for books, on which I spend a lot of money but have also found a lot of free stuff has come my way.) My situation changed a bit in my last job, where I taught at a New York City school with lots of connections of various kinds, which allowed me to see a lot of great first-run performances, including serious dramas, off-Broadway shows, and offbeat fare. In 2015 I accepted a last-minute offer for a free ticket to see a somewhat obscure show called Hamilton at the Public Theater; I later taught a course on the musical and hosted its production designer when he came and spoke with the class. I was aware of how privileged I was in that regard, and savored it.

Last week, I was in London, and I did what one does when one has a little time and a few quid to spare: I headed to the West End. (I attended a Cats performance there as a penniless student back in 1984, splurging on the cast album at Tower Records.) It was there that I got to see a show I long wanted to see: The Book of Mormon, which created a sensation when it premiered a dozen years ago. I was not disappointed: the play was every bit as delightful—which, among other things, means every bit as scatological—as one would expect from a musical whose book was written by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, working with Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez.

The moment for a review of this musical has long since passed, particularly coming from the likes of me. Suffice it to say that in its fish-out-of-water tale of very white and queerly straight missionaries who venture to Africa to save the souls of Ugandans, The Book of Mormon is gleefully savage in depicting the ridiculousness not just of that particular religious sect, but also the sentimental pieties of secular folk whose idea of soulfulness is The Lion King (yeah, I saw that one, too). But there are three aspects of the show that really struck me as I watched it and have stayed with me in the days since.

The first is the importance of relationships and friendships. As you would expect of a South Park sensibility, there’s much that’s cheerfully cynical about the motives of all the major characters in the play. But it’s precisely because these people are flawed—egotistic, mendacious, hypocritical—that makes their noble impulses all the more notable. These people learn to appreciate each other, which helps us appreciate them. The show is truly big-hearted in that way.

Second, I found myself, not for the first time, struck by the fierce, yet controlled, energy of the Mormons. The play is unsparingly hilarious in noting the self-serving quality of having an All-American ancient prophet, its belief that the Garden of Eden was Jackson County, Missouri, and the official 1978 church decision that black men can be priests after all. But it’s hard not to be impressed, in art and life, by their genealogical and missionary efforts. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself in talking about a faith and people with whom I have limited experience. But I do know that some of the most distinguished practitioners in my field, including Richard Bushman and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich—whom I regard as the greatest historian of my lifetime—are Mormon.

Finally, The Book of Mormon is anthropologically sophisticated about the role that faith plays in everyday life. As I listened to my fellow theatergoers roar over the crazy things Mormons believe, I found myself wondering how many of them harbored views their peers—past, present, and future—would find equally funny if not perplexing. At the end of the day, we all have to place our trust in matters beyond our own knowledge and experience, and that includes ever-shifting secular expertise that is at its best a method, not a finding. What matters less is what people believe than what they do with that faith.

And faith itself is ever-evolving in what it says and it what it allows people to do—not always easily, but sometimes creatively. That is perhaps the most profound truth revealed in The Book of Mormon, as one of its wildly anarchic characters begins to graft elements of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings saga into Mormon doctrine in an effort to convince his deeply skeptical Ugandan hosts of its appeal. Such adaptations are in fact central to the history of religion, notably Christianity, whose roots are pagan.

Whatever your tastes, God is always there. You can find him (her, their, it) backstage—and in the pit. Buy a ticket. Live the show.