Theatre in Review: The Book of Mormon (Eugene O'Neill Theatre)

When I was a boy, the nuns who taught me were fond of saying that God writes straight with crooked lines. I finally understand what they meant - how else to explain how a pair of atheist cutups have come up with a sophisticated analysis of the problem of belief in the modern world, and packaged it in a fast, funny, walloping musical hit?

I am, of course, referring to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the animated television series South Park, which each week mows down any and all conventional pieties, mercilessly spoofing taboo topics like Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Church of Scientology. That same comic ruthlessness is on display in The Book of Mormon, but -- perhaps because they were guided by their co-author, Robert Lopez, of Avenue Q fame, or perhaps because they were smart enough not to try and reinvent the -- their scabrous jokes are folded into the format of a conventional '60s-era book musical. Closer in format to Little Me or How to Succeed in Business than Urinetown and other contemporary self-spoofing musicals, The Book of Mormon alternately charms and leaves you gasping in shock.

The authors keep their brass knuckles under wraps for the first few scenes, winning us over with an appealing cast and some clever establishing numbers. (Well, there is the opening, which spoofs the wooden dramaturgy of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, the outdoor production in Palmyra, New York that recalls the religion's origins "in ancient Upstate New York," but, really, Parker, Stone, and Lopez are just warming up.) The opening number, "Hello," featuring a chorus of eager young Mormon missionaries ringing doorbells, could have come out of Bye Bye Birdie. It's followed by another charmer, "Two by Two," in which young men are paired off and assigned to missions around the world. It's here that we meet Elder Price, the perfect young Mormon -- he's as cheerful, neat, and respectful as the best Boy Scout -- who dreams of being sent to convert souls in Orlando, Florida. To his horror, his destination is Uganda, and his partner is Elder Cunningham, a tubby loser and science fiction fanboy with a skill for lying that verges on the pathological. Even here, however, the satire is relatively gentle, as Elder Price envisions their mission in totally self-serving terms, in the amusing "You and Me (But Mostly Me)."

The authors start getting away with murder when the action shifts to Uganda, portrayed here as a living hell of warfare and disease. In a show that stops at nothing when it comes to spoofing The Lion King -- as if Julie Taymor didn't have enough problems this season - the locals demonstrate their prevailing philosophy to Elders Price and Cunningham in a "Hakuna Matata"-style number titled "Hasa Diga Eebowai," which, when translated, turns out to be an unprintable, thanks-for-nothing insult aimed at God. Things don't improve when Elders Price and Cunningham meet up with their young colleagues and discover that the villagers, most of whom have AIDS, are under siege from a warlord who promotes female genital mutilation. Oh yes, and the number of converts they've amassed comes to zero.

Many of the best laughs are earned by dismantling Mormonism's most all-American aspect -- the chummy salesmanship at its core -- which leaves Elders Price and Cunningham so ill-equipped to perform their mission. At the same time, they are totally sympathetic to their young heroes' deeper, more existential crisis: Schooled in a faith that apparently nails down every one of life's ambiguities, how are they to proceed in an environment that refutes everything they have been taught? (This is brought home in the riotous number "I Believe," in which Elder Price reaffirms his commitment to various debatable Mormon tenets, including the notions that the Jews traveled by boat to America hundreds of years ago, and that God waited until 1978 before deciding that blacks could be Mormons.) As things continue to comically unravel -- with Elder Price losing his faith and Elder Cunningham winning converts under wildly false pretenses -- it becomes clear that, in the author's view, the problem isn't religion, as long as it exists in some kind of dynamic dialogue with the lives of the faithful. It's when faith turns dogmatic and rigid that you end up on the rack like the characters in The Book of Mormon.

This point is made most forcefully -- and hilariously -- in the climactic number "Joseph Smith American Moses," in which the villagers put on a pageant of their own for visiting Mormon dignitaries. Under Elder Cunningham's heterodox influence, their version of the Joseph Smith saga includes epic bouts of dysentery, interspecies sex, and the appearance of several characters from Star Trek and Star Wars. This number is the authors' funniest and most daring gambit- it's "The Small House of Uncle Thomas" from The King and I reworked as an act of sacrilege -- and yet it shows how any living faith will necessarily be transformed by its believers.

The fact that such ideas have been so easily slipped into a bright and merry -- and occasionally scalding -- musical comedy is a tribute to the authors, and also to the remarkably light-fingered direction of Casey Nicholaw and Parker and their nimble cast. Andrew Rannells, his cowlick firmly in place, his toothpaste-ad-ready smile lingering in the most desperate of circumstances, is exactly right as Elder Price. Blessed with lungs of steel, he delivers his frequently ridiculous lyrics with total conviction. Whether he's rhapsodically describing the beauties of Orlando, trembling in fear during a vision of hell, or, all faith gone, hitting the local coffee bar for a mega-dose of Mormon-prescribed caffeine, we're with him all the way. Josh Gad, with his gratingly nasal voice and his shirt dangling out of his pants, is an ideal foil for Rannells. Nikki M. James is winning as Nabulungi, the winsome villager who converts to Mormonism in hopes of emigrating to Salt Lake City. Rory O'Malley earns plenty of laughs as Elder McKinley, the leader of the Ugandan mission, who keeps insisting that his homosexual impulses have been resolved, all evidence to the contrary. (His big number, "Turn it Off," a kind of thesis statement of Mormon repression, is a real showstopper.) Michael Potts is also fine as Nabulungi's protective father.

You can tell that Scott Pask had plenty of fun designing The Book of Mormon, framing the proscenium in distinctive Mormon architecture and creating a show curtain with a kitschy, calendar-art view of the heavens. This is one of his most pleasingly old-fashioned designs, consisting of a series of drops depicting in-perspective views of Salt Lake City, Orlando, and other locations. Most of the action unfolds on the dimensional village set, a shabby arrangement of huts and other tumbledown wooden structures. There's also an amusingly rendered hell, here seen as a Coney Island-style series of tattered red portals. Brian MacDevitt packs the show with witty touches, including some overblown mirrorball effects to underline Elder Price's self-serving epiphanies and some laugh-provoking blackouts in "Turn It Off." Ann Roth's costumes range from those unmistakable Mormon missionary uniforms -- we even see their sacred temple garments -- to the villagers' ragged wear and a full set of red devils and dancing skeletons for the hell sequence.

Despite its universal acclaim -- The Book of Mormon earned reviews the likes of which haven't been seen since The Producers -- there are a few weaknesses. Even for a cartoon of this sort, the characters are drawn so thinly that, about 15 minutes before the end you may find yourself impatient to wrap things up. There are occasional moments when the jokes aren't quite up to the ugly realities of sub-Saharan Africa. Also, possibly because they're dealing with relentlessly optimistic Mormon attitudes, the score feel a bit overstuffed with cheery, up-tempo numbers, which finally start to blend into one in your mind. And someone has urged Brian Ronan, the sound designer, to crank up the decibel levels, which doesn't really do the score any favors, especially in the big choral numbers.

Then again, when was the last time you found yourself laughing out loud at a musical with so much on its mind? The political commentator Andrew Sullivan - a big fan of Parker and Stone - has noted that The Book of Mormon says that "religion is insane and necessary at the same time." That's about right, and that's what makes it unique among the current Broadway fare. Remember, tomorrow is a latter day.--David Barbour