This afternoon I finally saw THE BOOK OF MORMON on Broadway and, if I'm being totally honest here, I was not as impressed with it as I had expected to be.
The show was certainly fun and I liked it but I found it to pretty much be "South Park Lite." A good number of the themes had been explored on SOUTH PARK over the years and the musical numbers, while undeniably well-performed and amusing, mostly couldn't hold a candle to almost any of the musical segments from the TV series or the feature film SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT. The ending came off as rushed and the instantaneous conversion of African warlord General Butt-Fucking-Naked from a sadistic, murderous, female genitalia-mutilating despot to a doorbell-ringing proselytizer did not work for me at all. I'm willing to bet that a good percentage of the Broadway audience and the tourists who flock to shows on the Great White Way are not watchers of the series, so they go to THE BOOK OF MORMON and are happily shocked by its content, which is admittedly a lot more profane and potentially offensive than everything else currently running.
For me, the highlights were the set designs and the excellent "Hasa Diga Eebowai" number that advises curing one's blues by repeating the titular phrase (which translates as "Fuck you, God"). And seeing my ultra-religious mom laugh her ass off at the religious offensiveness and profane songs was a treat. If nothing else, seeing THE BOOK OF MORMON now has her interested in checking out SOUTH PARK.
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