THE BOOK OF MORMON Reviews!- Page 6

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 12:00pm

"Sorry After Eight, you are dead wrong. No other way to put it. I feel sorry for you that you can't find enjoyment in a show this good. And it looks like almost EVERYONE disagrees with you. I'm guessing your sense of humor just isn't sophisticated enough. "

Barney,

Many thanks for your sympathy. Maybe you're right. My sense of humor isn't sophisticated enough to appreciate the junior high school level adolesecent dirty word humor of this show. I guess I'm drawn more to the unsophisticated humor of Wilde, Coward, Congreve, Molière and people like that.

[Barney Stinson]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 12:18pm

I was thinking the Wiggles or Bozo the Clown might be more of your cup of tea.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 1:01pm

My sense of humor isn't sophisticated enough to appreciate the junior high school level adolesecent dirty word humor of this show. I guess I'm drawn more to the unsophisticated humor of Wilde, Coward, Congreve, Molière and people like that.

Why must these things be exclusive? I enjoy classic wit and intelligent comedy more than anybody else I know. That being said, I still found Book of Mormon to be a riot. I don't see why you can't find multiple types of comedy funny.

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 1:43pm

Brantley's dead-on here. So happy for the show. And as far as appeal goes, unless someone is seriously phased by bad language, this has exactly what everyone is looking for: hip comedy for the younger set and peppy music, good dancing and an old-fashioned structure for the older set. Tourists would love it just as much as anyone else, and as has been said, it doesn't rely on a star to run. It seems to be in a very good place to do really well for quite a while.

[Mythos]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 2:23pm

I hear you, aftereight. I don't mind the scatological humor in the show, which is amusing enough, however uneven. But when critics champion mediocre scores like TBOM, it makes it that much harder for work of real artistic merit to make itself heard on Broadway. Everything becomes grist for the mill for the undiscerning tourist trade. I despair that Broadway will ever see an adult, truly sophisticated musical with serious themes again.
Updated On: 3/25/11 at 02:23 PM

[April Saul]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 2:24pm

Maybe After Eight is really an elderly female tourist! (to get this joke you need to read the whole thread)

But seriously, as much as I adore BOM, Eight is entitled to NOT like Mormon, although I won't defend Eight if he/she starts making fun of those of us who do.

[theaternut]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 2:30pm

"I despair that Broadway will ever see an adult, truly sophisticated musical with serious themes again."

You mean boring?

[Mythos]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 2:37pm

Only for children and overgrown frat boys. And I'm thinking of the two drunk goons who sat behind me at TBOM laughing uproariously every time someone uttered a caca-doo-doo profanity. No, adult musical theatre is definitely not for them.
Updated On: 3/25/11 at 02:37 PM

[kyle4]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 2:49pm

as i said in my post about the first preview....

http://thetheaterbuff.typepad.com/the-theater-buff/2011/02/what-would-cheyenne-jackson-do.html ...

i did NOT love it... i LOVE south park... LOVE trey and matt... i just thought the show was OK...

i am VERY HAPPY that broadway has something to be EXCITED ABOUT... because, CLEARLY, people are VERY EXCITED...

i kinda believe we have an "emperor's new clothes" syndrome going on here... but it would delight me to be proven wrong !!!

regardless, i LOVE when i am EXCITED about a show.... and want to talk about it... see it over and over... that is one life's BEST feelings... i am REALLY happy to hear MOST (ALMOST ALL!!!) of you feel that way !!!!

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 2:51pm

Congrats to all involved on the great reviews.

To those who are already handing out every TONY, remember the critics don't decide this (though they have influence). Many times the critics darling is not the big TONY winner. Brantley's review of WICKED was a love song to Cheno and look what happened there, he also adored SIDESHOW which won how many awards?
I do wonder if Parker and Stone like being compared to Rogers and Hammerstein, sort of a blow to their bad boy reps.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:02pm

Trey Parker has long confessed to be a fan of musical theatres and classic musical comedies. They're not really as 'bad boy' as they used to be when South Park first premiered. They've really calmed down with age.

Mythos and After Eight are probably upset because they're those self-rightous liberal stuckups that are being parodied in 'We Are Africa.' Womp womp. Obviously afraid to laugh at anything less than 100 years old.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:12pm

"I guess I'm drawn more to the unsophisticated humor of Wilde, Coward, Congreve, Molière and people like that."

Wilde lived in a time in which he was prosecuted for his sexual practices, while the rest of society was so buttoned-up and repressed that they covered up table legs to prevent people from having lewd thoughts. And Molière's sophisticated comedies were attacked by moralists, the Church, and conventional thinkers of the time for being profane and vulgar (despite their success with the audiences of the time). High-brow, those writers were not. Even Coward's stuff was quite racy for the time (Design for Living, for example).

Maybe in 100 years you'll like Book of Mormon.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:22pm

"I despair that Broadway will ever see an adult, truly sophisticated musical with serious themes again."

"Despair?"

Really?

"Despair?"

oh el oh el oh el

Oh, land o' days.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:23pm

BWW Review round-up

[Katurian2]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:24pm

@ Kad

[Mythos]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:40pm

"High-brow, those writers were not."

Obviously, you don't know the work of Oscar Wilde at all.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 3:49pm

Is it the profanity you find immature, AfterEight? Because the show's sense of irony and wit is (especially in the second act) just as pointed as the writers you cited. I think the only reason it seems unsophisticated to you is because of the modern vernacular.
Updated On: 3/25/11 at 03:49 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 4:10pm

"Obviously, you don't know the work of Oscar Wilde at all."

Of course I am. But I am afraid you are applying modern standards to his work. Yes, NOW his plays and writings are high brow. At the time of their debut? They were popular successes (except Dorian Gray- it was thrashed for being scandalous and hedonistic), touring the country and delighting audiences. They were enjoyed by everyone. Wilde was popular entertainment. Not as low as music hall, but popular entertainment nevertheless.

Earnest was in fact criticized for not tackling social issues, and by Shaw for lacking a heart and just being funny.


If Wilde or Moliere and so forth were writing now, would they use profanities? Possibly. Probably. Because they now CAN.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 4:16pm

Aristophanes.. the father of satire
wrote scatalogical shocking orgiastic profane comedies...
Lysistrata, The Frogs. The Birds.

In fact they were not taught in colleges until the 20th Century because they were considered profanity. NOw we call them classics. Ah the times have changed.

It seems to me The Book of Mormon achieves all of Aristophanes
demands for satire.

I prediced before the show openned in this blog that it would be a big fat hit. I must say I love being right. I also love being happy and Book of Mormon made me happy.

Aristophanes is celebrating in the sky! Orgies! Profanity!
Frogs! All the stuff of great Greek Comedy.

Its a new world... Wilde and Congreve are long gone. So is
Aristophanes. But Aristophanes may have a rebirth in Lopez, Parker and Stone.

Book of Mormon is not for everyone. But neither was Aristophanes or South Park for that matter.

Book of Mormon is the best musical I've seen in years.
And I've been seeing shows since 1960.
Updated On: 3/25/11 at 04:16 PM

[artscallion]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 4:18pm

I've always said Shakespeare was the Benny Hill of his day.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 4:28pm

And that would be extremely apt.

And goldenboy- Aristophanes is the perfect name to bring up in this discussion. You're exactly right- Aristophanes echoes in Book of Mormon. As long as there has been theatre, there has been the vulgar, profane, satirical works that delight crowds but seem to piss off the people yearn for the works of the generation before.
Nothing really changes but the specifics.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 4:33pm

Thank you.
I like being apt.
I like being right.
I like being happy.
I love to laugh.
and I like being happy at brilliant musicals.

I am afraid to see anything else this week because they risk
comparisons to B OF Mormon.

On to PRiscilla and Catch Me if you can.
Sister Act I saw. Oy.

[Mythos]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 4:59pm

"Of course I am. But I am afraid you are applying modern standards to his work. Yes, NOW his plays and writings are high brow. At the time of their debut? They were popular successes (except Dorian Gray- it was thrashed for being scandalous and hedonistic), touring the country and delighting audiences. They were enjoyed by everyone. Wilde was popular entertainment. Not as low as music hall, but popular entertainment nevertheless."

And again you miss the point. Wilde's plays were a dissection of morality among the denizens of the upper crust. Who do you think was in attendance at the Haymarket on opening nights? The hoi-polloi?

And, sure, Aristophanes is a forerunner of scatological, satirical comedy. But you forget one important point: his were PHALLIC comedies that celebrated potency, sexuality, and the eternal return of life. In short, a ritual means to a fecund end. No such raison d'etre exists with TBOM, where the phalluses on display are utilized for shock value and profanity's sake alone (we won't get into how the natives are portrayed as naive simpletons). Sure, it has an argument: religions are essentially one large monomyth, with newer systems appropriating the symbols, mythology and folklore of the older in order to proselytize a new faith. But that's not exactly a new concept now, is it? And there's no payoff on a HUMAN level--no romance, no love, no sex--with anything that happens in TBOM to justify the use of such scatology except to appeal to a dumbed-down audience.





Updated On: 3/25/11 at 04:59 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 5:13pm

According to Stagegrade the tally stands now at

15 raves
1 favourable
0 mixed
1 Unfavourable

plus 1 pan from Toronto Star/Ouzounian.
Reviews

[Kad]

Posted: 3/25/11 at 5:28pm

Yes, it is undeniable that Wilde was targeting the upper crust and that the upper crust willingly doled out money to see it. But was it considered high art, high brow? No. They went to snicker at the characters onstage- people who undoubtedly resembled people in their own lives- and laugh at the one-liners and sampler-quality epigrams. The works were considered slight.

The plays of Aristophanes are a bit more complex than the phallic comedies that predated them. Not every play performed was ritual at his time. His plays were wildly political and topical and extremely ribald and bawdy. Yes, they were most often performed in the auspices of the City of Dionysia and the holiday and feeling of release gave him a great deal of leeway and freedom.

Honestly- I didn't find Book of Mormon shocking in the least. I actually found the musical pretty tame, even in comparison with other plays or musicals in the last few years. I don't see the issue with a lack of "human element". The films of the Marx Brothers had only tenuous romance or the like, with scenes upon scenes of schtick- and they work. The musical is comedy for comedy's sake- some of it is derived from satire of religion or the LDS, some of it is derived from vulgarity, some from irony and pastiche. It is not your choice of comedy-delivery method. But is it a reflection of "dumbed down audiences"? I do not think so, because this form has existed in some form or another for centuries, from commedia dell'arte to the ancient Greeks to French sex farces.