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The Book of Mormon is a biting satirical comedy on two missionaries who are assigned to Uganda as their mission destination and
when they arrive, find themselves ignored. Trying to convince the locals of the truth of the Mormon faith, they are met with disgruntled disbelief. The better of the two missionaries sticks strictly to the party line, while the worse moderates the Mormon religion to help give the locals a form of the religion that they actually want to believe – to the consternation of the Mormon leaders back in the US.
The most controversial humour was the song of the Ugandans ‘Hasa Diga Ebowai’, mocking the Americans’ faith by showing the suffering of the Africans. For them, their suffering makes belief in God impossible. This song both says ‘Fuck you, God!’ and highlights the hypocrisy of Americans with a ‘white saviour complex’ who attempt to bring ‘light to the dark continent.’ An update of Conrad, then – only with more swearing, abuse, and toilet jokes. Some found these aspects of it slightly contradictory with the sophistication of the political humour, but all round contributed to an edgy piece of theatre.
The humour is actually a triumphant success, using the apparent ridiculousness of the formation of the Mormon faith as fodder for the comedy. All round it was a laugh out loud musical, even when your better instincts told you not to. This was definitely a case of a guilty pleasure; daring to say jokes that if said at a party would get raised eyebrows. Once through the theatre doors, it seemed as if anything went – no joke too offensive, no targets sacrosanct.
However, poor marketing campaigns resulted in it being targeted at families. It is disconcerting to have such an explicit, atheistic and political musical thrust at families who will be convinced to take their children, despite the clear age warn- ings. The catchy songs made these ideas even
easier to swallow for all, especially for children, and my instinct was that there should have been more attempt made to make sure that kids would not attempt to come and watch it. This is not necessarily a critique of this musical specifically, but is evidence of a problem that is endemic in marketing for theatre, film and music – the misdirection of explicit material to younger children.
In short, it was a controversial piece that oc- casionally jarred with its self-propagated image. However, it was funny at a deep level, critiquing Western hypocrisy, religion in general and Mormonism specifically, all in one fell swoop.
Oh and by the way, we know this wasn’t a review of Oxford drama, but there is a reason. People, Places, Things were cancelled, and so we hope none of you were foolish enough to go along with our recommendation last week. Apologies…
