‘The Book of Mormon’ (tour) @ Bass Performance Hall
Photos by Julieta Cervantes
—Jan Farrington
Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon got waves of laughter from an opening-night audience at Bass Performance Hall on Friday—where the touring company is playing through the weekend (presented by Performing Arts Fort Worth) before moving to Dallas August 1-6.
Mormon is exactly the kind of show you’d expect the team from South Park to dream up: corrosively funny, cheerfully potty-mouthed, and surprisingly touching. Co-creators Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez never pull a punch—they’re willing to trash-talk (and walk the thin line between offensive and “yikes”) in their portrayals of everyone and everything onstage, from some young Mormon missionaries to the founding fathers of that All-American religion, to the cursing, seen-it-all inhabitants of a hardscrabble African village they’re trying to convert.
But the show is undeniably hilarious, the tunes are catchy, and it’s done with such good humor it’s almost sure to leave you with a guilty-pleasure grin on your face.
Jennifer Werner directs and choreographs for the touring company, certainly drawing from Casey Nicholaw’s fun dances for the original show. Scott Pask’s mobile and clever set designs and Ann Roth’s super costumes for the Broadway production are here too,, as are the orchestrations and arrangements by Stephen Oremus and Larry Hochman, deftly handled by the live band led by conductor Mason Moss. It takes a village to put on a show.
A pair of guys—teenagers, really—anchor the story, in case you don’t know already. Like most young Mormons, they’re setting out as “companions” for a two-year stint as missionaries somewhere in the world. Their cohorts are assigned to France, Japan, Norway…and they’re heading for Uganda. “Where’s that?” asks one of them (Africa). The other, who was hoping for a “happy” spot like Orlando, is in shock. Cue the comedy and wackiness.
Sam McLellan practically glows as self-assured young missionary Elder Price, certain that “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” are going to save the world. Curly-haired Sam Nackman is Elder Cunningham, chatty and awkward, the “sidekick” Price didn’t want—but maybe what he needs.
In Uganda, where the people are thinking more about AIDS, gun-toting warlords, and plain old starvation than religion, nobody wants to be baptized. Villager Nabulungi (Keke Nesbitt) is a friendly and opinionated young woman (and a rousing singer!) who helps our duo get a feel for the place. So does her father Mafala (Lamont J. Whitaker), who fills them in on the actual realities of his struggling country.
The plot’s too zig-zaggy to cover in detail, so let’s say that between the many fresh and funny songs, we meet a blond Jesus with a cracker accent; historic Mormons from “ancient America”; some suits from “Sal Tlay Ka Siti” (Utah); an emotionally repressed chorus of fellow missionaries (“Turn It Off”); a red-hot Lucifer in Elder Price’s “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”—and hear Elder Cunningham’s voice drop an octave in the very funny songs “Man Up” and “Baptize Me” (a duet with Nabalungi).
The Book of Mormon is good, R-rated fun, with happy endings shaping up for both our missionaries and the African village they’re trying, in their weird way, to serve. As Scarlett O’Hara (oh, wait, I mean Elder Cunningham) would say: “Tomorrow is a Latter Day”—and there’s lots of time to work for a better world.
WHEN: Through July 30 in Fort Worth; opening in Dallas August 1-6
WHERE: Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth; The Music Hall at Fair Park, Dallas
WEB: tickets at basshall.com and at broadwaydallas.com
