George S. Kaufman once observed that “satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But then he never met Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the two wags behind the comic boundary-pushing cable television show, South Park, and the musical, The Book of Mormon.
In 2011, they brought their satirical and scatological sensibilities to Broadway with the latter, a brash send-up of the loopy contemporary religion and its army of globe-trotting young missionaries. Many industry watchers doubted the show would find a receptive audience on Broadway, but it is still playing in New York almost 15 years later and is about to claim a spot among the 10 longest-running shows in Broadway history.
And as the current booking at the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos Hall proves, it is still doing well on tour.
If The Book of Mormon were a movie, it would be R-rated for its potty-mouthed dialogue and lyrics. Yet there is an underlying sweetness to its story of faith and friendship. Yes, it tacitly argues, the Church of Latter Day Saints is a little crazy, but aren’t all organized religions? The Mormon church girded itself for the skewering it expected when the show premiered, but by now it uses the musical as a recruiting tool.
At the show’s core is a pair of eager, naïve missionaries — charismatic, but self-centered Kevin Price (Sam McLellan) and pudgy, prevaricating Arnold Cunningham (Diego Enrico). To their dismay, they are sent to proselytize in Uganda, a nation of AIDS, female mutilation and violent warlords, with hardly any similarity to The Lion King, as Elder Cunningham had hoped.
Aiding Stone and Parker in their first foray onto Broadway are veterans Robert Lopez (composer of Avenue Q and Frozen) and Casey Nicholaw (director of The Drowsy Chaperone and Disney’s Aladdin). Collectively, they demonstrate their musical theater acumen with their version of the saga of Mormon founder Joseph Smith as a parody of The King and I’s “Small House of Uncle Thomas” and an anthem of faith (“I Believe”) that is pure Rodgers and Hammerstein. They also tip their hats to The Lion King’s “Hakune Matata” with a similarly bouncy “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” which seems benign enough until we learn its profane translation.
The Ugandans are understandably uninterested in becoming Mormons, but Arnold ultimately closes the deal with his truth-stretching interpretation of the title book, equal parts Star Trek, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. And since any good musical comedy needs a love interest, Arnold becomes smitten with Nabulungi (Keke Nesbitt), a comely Ugandan local who is eager to convert and visit the Mormon promised land, Sal Tlay Ka Siti.
The Book of Mormon is that rare musical comedy that is laugh-out-loud funny. And such is Stone and Parker’s willingness to go to great lengths for comic effect that they insert an elaborate tangent, Elder Price’s “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream,” populated with such icons of evil as Adolf Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer and Johnnie Cochran.
Tour director and choreographer Jennifer Werner replicates the original staging by Nicholaw and Parker, delivering a surprisingly fresh production worth its weight in giggles. She has a Broadway-worthy cast, led by the endearingly unkempt Enrico and the full-voiced, uber-sincere McLellan. The very appealing Nesbitt — a Dreyfoos School graduate — has laser-sharp comic timing and Craig Franke is an ensemble standout as a gay tap dancer doing what he can to deny his sexual orientation.
This is the third visit of The Book of Mormon to the Kravis Center and since comedy is so dependent on the element of surprise, the show should be wearing out its welcome by now. But that is hardly the case here. Maybe the show has lost a little of its ability to outrage us, but it remains as hysterically funny as ever.
THE BOOK OF MORMON, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday, March 16. $60 – $165. 561-832-7469.