Should this mega-musical’s creators (the South Park gang) turn it into a movie—and they’re thinking about that—we suggest a snappy new title: Missionaries: Impossible.
Until then, you’ll know it as The Book of Mormon, the brash, multi-Tony award-winning skewering of religiosity, in which American Mormon missionaries with impossibly sunny dispositions and blissful naïveté head to a Ugandan village to convert the natives. Trouble is, the villagers are otherwise occupied with war, famine, poverty, female circumcision, AIDS and a brutal warlord.
A mirthful romp, right? Just sprinkle in dollops of profanity and a score that riotously mocks the fanatically faithful (“All American Prophet,” “Making Things Up Again,” “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”) and it is.
Tip your hat, though, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Responding to the satirical assault with their own sense of humor, the church has bought ads in the show’s Playbill promoting the actual Book of Mormon.
Tagline: “The Book is always better.”
The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, 2 & 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27 & Oct. 3-4, 10-11 & 17-18, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29-30 & Oct. 1-2, 6-9 & 13-16, $36-$160 plus tax and fee. 702.749.2000
