Review: The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon
Producers listed here
4 February 2017
Princess Theatre
open run
bookofmormonmusical.com.au

The Book of Mormon. Ryan Bondy & Auguston Aziz Tchantcho. Photo by Jeff Busby

Oh, I believe!

The expectations of the Australian production of The Book of Mormon were higher than a stoner watching South Park – the Broadway run hasn’t had an empty seat since it opened, and won Tonys, in 2011. These expectations have been reached – and surpassed.

Seeing it once isn’t enough.

Elders Price and Cunningham are 19 and paired off for their two-year Mission, following the thousands of Elders who have set the stereotype of Mormons all over the world. Elder Price (Ryan Bondy) is the perfect Latter Day Saint son. He knows he’s one of Heavenly Father’s favourites and prays to be sent to Orlando, Florida, for theme parks and putt-putt golfing. Elder Cunningham (AJ Holmes) gets everything wrong, is mostly excited to finally have a friend, and has to be told that Uganda, their destination, is in Africa. When they arrive in a village that’s been devastated by poverty and the threat of a local warlord adds to the misery of most of them having AIDS, there’s hope for baptisms – but the villagers have strong opinions about the mercy and goodness of God.

I don’t think I have ever laughed so much.

It’s easy to praise Bondy and Holmes (they have played the roles in international productions and will be replaced by their Australian understudies) who win the undying love of the audience from their first ding dongs. But everyone on stage is as utterly brilliant. Zahra Newman (Nabulungi), Bert LaBonte (Mafala Hatimbi) and Rowan Witt (Elder McKinley) are unforgettable and have each brought an extra bit of themselves to make the roles their own; the background characters are as developed as the protagonists; and the on-stage energy could run a city power grid

Written by Robert Lopez (Avenue Q and the wonderful musical episode of Scrubs), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park), and co-directed by Parker and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (a pile of Broadway shows), the satire of the Mormons and their faith is merciless. It’s created by following the first rule of comedy: tell the truth. Today, about 15 million people believe that truth about the church founded in America in the 1830s, but a lot of truths seem a bit nutso when they’re described.

The Ugandans are equally satirised, but their truth is very different and always seen through the point of view of the Mormons. They aren’t real Ugandans, but an exaggerated version of the “nice” and “innocent” (or warlordy) Africans expected on music theatre stages. Their layer of truth is the poverty and diseases that America could cure today; the cost of an A-reserve ticket could feed a starving child for a long time.

As the super-white American Mormons and the Africans are brought together with a common hope and goal, they are always the heroes of their personal, and the bigger, story. Everyone – even General I-can’t-spoil-the-joke-for-those-who-don’t-know – is loved and always laughed with, far more than at.

This confrontation and shattering of expectations is carried though every element. Glorious, flat, shining Salt Lake City falls away as a rotting dead donkey is dragged through the village; the Mormon boys dance like showgirls; and music theatre nerds can spot the references-cum-homages to shows including Les Miserables, The Sound of Music, The King and I, Hamilton and, of course, The Lion King.

Or just enjoy the joyous obscenity and freaking language, the tighter-than-tight jokes, the foot-perfect chorey, magnificent singing, and insanely brilliant design (Scott Pask, set; Ann Roth, costume; Brian MacDevitt, lighting) that’s as complex and joke-filled as the script.

They’ve done something incredible.

Also on AussieTheatre.com.

As it's also a very expensive ticket (musicals don't welcome everyone), it's worth trying for the nightly $40 ticket lottery. You have to be at the theatre when it's drawn, but it could save you around $400 for two tickets.

Review: Into the Woods

Into the Woods
Victorian Opera
19 July 2014
The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 26 July
victorianopera.com.au

Photo by Jeff Busby

After the success of their Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine created Into the Woods (1986), which beat Phantom of the Opera at the Tonys and firmly sits on the top of many favourite-musical lists. Following the success of their 2013 production of Sunday in the Park with George, Victorian Opera have followed with an Into the Woods that's as close to sold out as it can be and even closer to perfection.

With a boldness, a sense of cheekiness and an understated sophistication, Vic Opera tell the tale with Australian twists and a loving understanding of the power of once-upon-a-time story telling. If you have a ticket, don't let it out of your sight because the show's simply unforgettable and reminds us that music theatre should never be a fading and dull copy of another production.

Lapine's book (he also directed the Broadway version) takes characters and well-known stories from the Brothers Grimm's collection of European fairy tales (mid-1800s) and sends them into the woods to find themselves together as part of a bigger story. Act one brings everyone through trials to their happy-ever-after; Act two asks what happens next and is as dark, confronting and blood-filled as traditional fairy tales really are.

Part of the inspiration for Woods was the 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by academic and therapist Bruno Bettleheim. Since his death (1990), Bettleheim has been criticised academically and personally, but his book continues to influence and inspire countless writers. Internationally successful Australian children's/young adult writer John Marsden (Tomorrow When the War Began series) is among those who recommend it. It's partly a Freudian psychoanalytic analysis of Fairy Tales (mostly the Grimm's collection) and the rest is a discussion about the psychological impact of fairy tales on children – or the importance of telling and re-telling stories. At the most simple level, we tell stories to understand the world.

But there's nothing simple about Into the Woods. From its surface of fairy tales and gorgeous syncopated rhymes (that Sondheim and his lyrics!), layers are torn away and complexities revealed until grown ups find themselves crying because they see it as a story about themselves. We re-tell stories to understand the world and our place in it.

And the music's by Sondheim, so it shares the every emotion without a word being spoken.

Photo by Jeff Busby

While one of the genius notes of Into the Woods is the complexity of its re-telling of known tales, much of the magnificence of Victorian Opera's production is how director Stuart Maunder lets the story be told without over complication or sentimentality, while supporting the comedy and freeing it from the so-well-known Broadway production that so many of us have seen because it was filmed for TV.

Adam Gardnir's design of bare trees creates an ever-changing wood that's comforting and familiar and terrifying and bone-like (with perhaps a nod to Freud), and the woods are given depth, darkness and magic flashes by Philip Lethlean's lighting. Which are all an ideal world for Harriet Oxley's costumes that take the shape of pantomime-fairy-tale costumes, but are filled with bold colour and geometric shapes that help tell a story that's for now and forever.

Conductor Benjamin Northey and sound designer Jim Atkins create a recordable pit–stage balance that uses the amplification to emphasise the unique sound of each singer, and helps to enforce the idea that stories are best told by human voices.

Vocally and emotionally the cast nail it. While Christina O'Neil (Baker's wife), Rowan Witt (Jack), Queenie van de Zandt (Witch), Josie Lane (Red Riding Hood) and Lucy Maunder (Cinderella) lead the way, everyone brings a real bit of themselves to their roles and every character has their moment of pure enchantment.

The only disappointment about Into the Woods is that it has so few shows and the tickets left can be counted on one hand (hint: try for singles). With producers letting sub-standard shows run for months in big theatres, surely there are ways to bring this production to a bigger audience. #IWish.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.