The Book of Mormon, or How We Offended Everyone and Kept ‘Em Laughing

The shocking thing about the new Broadway musical The Book of Mormon is not that it bursts with shocking things. C'mon! It comes from the minds of the creators of South Park.

 No, the shocking thing about The Book of Mormon is that after all the production numbers that make searing fun of Mormonism, African culture, AIDS, terror, mainline religion and every Western creation myth - after all of that, the show ends up an unbridled celebration of faith.

I got the feeling at Mormon that I was looking at some sophisticated school kids' prank - the same way I generally react to the irreverent animated South Park. Its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have teamed with Robert Lopez, the composer of Avenue Q, to write and score this show about two almost-adult Mormon boys sent to do their mission work - their proselytizing - in Uganda.

The show is a hoot - and a literal guilty pleasure. Parker and Stone have made their names by pushing the line between irreverence and offense until it stretches into a blur. It's impossible not to laugh at their two mismatched Mormon guys (played for maximum ingratiation by the wonderful Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells) as they run up against every cultural barrier they confront at a Ugandan village (where Nikki M. James and Michael Potts gamely play the main roles.)

So yes, I laughed a lot - through the rousing, gleefully sacrilegious production numbers (Casey Nicholaw's choreography) that tear Mormonism apart as if it were the last safe target for mocking religion and then proceed to rip into the rest of the Judeo-Christian ethos.

All the time, though, Mormon is coming full circle. Its triumph - that's not too strong a word: For all its outrageous mockery, the show encourages you appreciate whatever creation story gives you comfort and allows you to appropriate mystery. In that, The Book of Mormon is the ultimate feel-good musical, and Broadway's genuine paradox.