Wildly silly and littered with obscenity: This show will make you laugh until it hurts

MUSICAL THEATRE
The Book of Mormon ★★★★★
Princess Theatre, from February 12

Much has changed since The Book of Mormon’s Australian premiere in 2017, but the omnivorous satire of Trey Parker and Matt Stone retains an edge in a fallen world that seems increasingly immune to parody.

No comedy landed blows on the cruelty, chaos, and naked authoritarian intent of the second Trump administration quite like the latest season of South Park – which featured the President having sex with Satan – and despite a similar puerile streak, The Book of Mormon remains one of the funniest Broadway musicals of all time, not least because it is willing to slaughter every sacred cow in sight.

This wildly silly story of Mormons sent to a remote Ugandan village takes comedic licence to extremes.

It’s all kinds of wrong. Songs littered with lyric obscenity. Tap dancing choruses of self-appointed white saviours. Parodies of cultural appropriation (with musical nods to The Lion King) and cultural relativism (with a villain devoted to female genital mutilation), and light mockery of the stranger beliefs of Mormonism, all wrapped in a post-colonial encounter that transcends offence by lobbing counter-offence at every uncomfortable truth it lampoons.

Young Mormon missionaries Elder Price (Sean Johnston) and Elder Cunningham (Nick Cox) have their work cut out for them. The Africans they’ve been sent to convert are unreceptive, and fair enough. Poverty and AIDS are rampant, and they live under the gun of a vicious warlord, General Buttf---ing Naked (Augie Tchantcho), who’s determined to cut off every clitoris in their village.

The town’s leader Mafala Hatimbi (Simbarashe Matshe) and his daughter Nabulungi (Paris Leveque) are prone to cursing the Almighty, the Elder in charge (Tom Struik) is a closeted homosexual, and the hopelessness of their mission leads even the ardent, all-American Elder Price to a crisis of faith.

It’s up to his super-nerd sidekick Elder Cunningham – a maidenless sweatlord with a Star Wars obsession – to spice up the word of Jesus if he wants to bring the populace into the church. But is he giving them false hope? And what will happen when the newly converted Africans perform a play containing their interpretation of Mormon beliefs?

This production is in some respects better than the one in 2017. The central comedy duo has sharper definition and contrast, the Bob Fosse-inspired choruses of dancing Mormons give showstopping performances, and the chorus of African villagers has the last laugh in a scene of utter hilarity.

There’s the odd soft point, too, notably the relative weakness of Leveque’s voice in a role that was sung last time around by the inimitable Zahra Newman.

Still, this all-singing, all-dancing production is packed with vocal and comedic talent, and the show will make you laugh ’til it hurts, whether you’ve seen it before or not.

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