The Book of Mormon

My cousin and I won tickets for this show the other night and I have many many thoughts about it. I will be back shortly with my review. Bad blogger.

I'm baaaaaack!

Alright. I was not going to talk religion or politics on the blog, but here we go. I'm slightly worried, but if nothing else this musical has inspired me to be bold.

I had almost as much desire to see The Book of Mormon as Bill Maher's Religulous. Zero to none. I have very dear Mormon friends who I respect very much and quite frankly I am tired of the "believer" bashing. It is quite the trend right now to be "religulous" and I am tired of the media specifically making Christians out to be gay haters, polygamists, or pedophiles. I have always thought South Park was kinda gross and thought it was a contributor to the downward spiral of class in our society. If you don't believe this is happening, check out the Oscar award winning song "It's hard out there for a pimp".

On the other hand I am a theater chick who likes "contemporary art".  I love to see when Broadway shows push boundaries and I'm no prude. (I loved Avenue Q)  I had heard that they made this out to be a classic musical and with Jon Stewart's quote "the way you actually make us laugh at while simultaneously celebrating religion is brilliant" I thought, why not. It's the talk of the town. We WON $32 box seats when you can't get anything under $100 and the show is selling over capacity at %101 percent so again, why not?

Well I have to say I haven't laughed so hard at a musical since Avenue Q. The performers as usual were brilliant.  As far a social commentary goes, it was jaw droppingly shocking and at many times if not all times spot on. I definitely didn't think anyone came out of the musical thinking any worse of the groups being depicted. Here is a good review straight from Salt Lake City. I definitely enjoyed my 2.5 hours. BUT right after the show we met up with another Broadway performer who shall remain nameless so I will describe him as a prominent Broadway performer, and African American Christian who is open to the gay community. He asked us how we liked the show and we nodded and asked him the same. He hated it. When we asked why he said he thought it was disgusting to see Black Africans with AIDS and Christians being mocked by two middle class white atheists from Colorado. OK, he had a point. BUT, when you see any kind of "roast" which is what I think Matt Stone and Trey Parker do for a living you have to keep in mind that everyone is being ridiculed. I mean "Blame Canada" came from these guys and we all love Canadians right? But he definitely got me thinking.

Is this the best way to point out the scruples of humanity? Would these same people make a musical about Muslims? Or would they be afraid to get death threats? I mean Mormons are a pretty safe group and are so nice they probably would buy the CD and tee shirt. And as far as a classic musical this is absolutely not that. Here are some Cole Porter lyrics from Anything Goes:

You're the top! you're the Collosseum,
You're the top! you're the Louvre Museum,
You're the melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare Sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse!

You're the Nile! You're the Tow'r of Pisa,
You're the smile, of  the Mona Lisa!
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop!
But if baby I'm the bottom,
You're the top!

I couldn't find the lyrics from Book of Mormon yet online but there was a song that was titled "#$&@ You God" and they sang about everything from @#$%ing babies to female circumcision. This is not a classical musical. But I did think the vehicle of singing and laughing at the absurdity of life and our journey trying to figure it all out was very entertaining.  Does that make me part of the downward spiral?

I think the problem I see with Christianity is that we exclude people. I DO NOT think Jesus would have turned away ANYONE from his church. ANYONE.
I was and am close to Mormonism and it is not what the media makes it out to be. It is really quite beautiful and the people are wonderful.  At times it feels like a private club and maybe that feeling of exclusion is the reason it is so misunderstood. And that applies to any religion. The media is having a field day with Christians because some of us are excluding the gay community, priests are having sex with boys and there are fundamentalist polygamist "Mormons".  Christianity needs to fix itself as many things in this world need to fix themselves. The government, Libya, and Capitalism all quickly come to mind.  Ok I feel like I am about to go on a tangent so I will stop now. I'm also going to stop because I feel like I am in the middle of many groups here and I don't want to start a riot.

Go see live theater.  It makes you think. That's my real point.