Book of Mormon - Chicago Reviews

[phan24]

Posted: 12/11/12 at 11:32pm

Was anyone present at tonight's opening night performance? I'd like to hear reviews about the new take on Elder Cunningham by Ben Platt, and the last minute (2 weeks notice) replacement of Stephanie Umoh with Syesha Mercado as Nabulungi!

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 12/11/12 at 11:40pm

Tonight was the first preview, not opening night. They also replaced Elder McKinley.

(Edit due to sleepiness. Sorry!)

Updated On: 12/11/12 at 11:40 PM

[BigRed]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 12:15am

Just got back from the show and it was great.
Ben as Cunningham was probably the best part of the show. His voice is incredible and probably the best of anyone to play the role to date. He has great comedic timing and loved his sense of nervous energy. I was disappointed to see that Stephanie Umoh was no longer in the cast, but Syesha Mercado blew me away. She looks great for the part and has a beautiful voice that works well.
The role of Elder McKinley is now played by Pierce Cassedy and he was great as well...a nice fit for the part. Nic Rouleau isn't my favorite, but he has a great take on the role and his experience with the production showed tonight.

I absolutely loved the Chicago production and I really hope it does well!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 12:50am

Why'd she drop out?

[willep]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 1:12am

^According to someone in the other thread they were both fired and bought out of their contracts.

[theaterdrew]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 6:00pm

What was the running time for the show? I'm seeing it tomorrow night and have an early meeting the next morning, so wondering how late I'll get back.

[BigRed]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 6:11pm

The run time is pretty standard. About 2 hours 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.

[theaterdrew]

Posted: 12/12/12 at 9:53pm

Great, thanks! Really excited to finally get to see this show.

[SpaceOpera]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 12:25am

I agree with everyone about Ben Platt. He was an extremely strong performer at Tuesday's show. He played the role of Cunningham in a way that I haven't seen before. James Vincent Meredith also stood out to me. The rest of the cast, especially the Ugandans, all shone as expected. Shame about the microphone error in the opening number, though!

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:11am

I saw the show last night, 12/12/12. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was lucky enough to see the original company on Broadway in March of 2011. I don't think either one of the leads, Price or Cunningham, are as good as the Broadway originals, but they got the job done. With that said, they both had several scenes where they sang/acted exceptionally well. It just was not consistent from start to finish.

Something about seeing the show in such a larger theater than the Eugene O'Neill left something to be desired as well. I sat in the balcony, and the church/proscenium set pieces blocked my view of action upstage frequently. On Broadway, the top of white proscenium and the angel is flush with the top of the actual proscenium. But at the BoaT, there is a good 20 feet of space above the top of the church arch. They filled it in with a planetary/space scene. I thought that was funny.

Two differences I noticed from New York: when Neutrogena/Nestle Crunch gets baptized, I remember her flying underneath the fabrics hanging onstage. Didn't an actress get injured from that? That is no longer in there. Also, I could have sworn they had an actor in a Pope costume in "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream". I'm a Catholic and I could enjoy a good Catholic joke so I distinctly remember the Pope in Mormon hell. No Pope in Chicago.

All of the Ugandan people were quite strong. When they put on their Mormon pagaent......man that was done well.

I can't wait to see the show again and I'm so glad it will be staying in Chicago for a while. HOWEVER, one last thing.....while the audience did laugh often last night, the reaction was lukewarm compared to the roaring, boisterious laughter and reaction I witnessed on Broadway. Not sure if I just had a dud audience or if Chicagoans didn't "get" some of the jokes, or if New York audiences are just louder.

Updated On: 12/13/12 at 11:11 AM

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:18am

The Hell Dream characters are Hitler, Jesus, Genghis Khan, Johnnie Cochran, Price's dad and Dahmer. Never the Pope. And there's been no flying for Nabulungi during Baptize Me ever; she just kind of falls behind the cloth, splashes herself with water, and comes back out again during "I'm wet with salvation."

Thanks for that review, though! :) I think Nestle Crunch is a new name.

[BigRed]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 12:04pm

When I saw the first preview on Tuesday, the audience reaction was great. I also saw the Original Broadway Cast and enjoyed this company just as much, if not more!

Just another random point- I thought Baptize Me was one of the best songs of the show. Ben and Syesha sounded great together and they had wonderful chemistry together...it was so so funny.

And Ben did have some great names for Nabulungi (some of which have been used before) like: Nutella, Nala, Nestle crunch..



Updated On: 12/13/12 at 12:04 PM

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 1:21pm

Sorry, I didn't mean that the Pope was one of the four main people mentioned by name in the song, he was just one of the people in the background during all of the extended choreography sequences.

And yes, every time Cunningham came up with a new name for Nabulungi, it got a huge laugh. It was great because it was even done during "serious" moments.

Also, in Baptize me, I didn't say it was "flying", I thought she SLID underneath the hanging fabric. But maybe I'm remembering wrong. But I thought I read that that staging was changed because an actress injured herself sliding underneath. I could be wrong though.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 10:58pm

since Platt doesn't fit the "fat white guy" type that has been Elder Cunningham, what do they call him??

[phan24]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:17pm

On Broadway, when Benjamin Schrader would understudy for Josh Gad , they would change that lyric to "listen to that weird white man" since he was not fat either, I would assume this is the permanent lyric on tour now.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:19pm

The Pope's not in "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream" at all. The ensemble is made up of devils or those aforementioned figures.

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:38pm

My favorite Nabalungi name so far has been Nonequity.

[willep]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:40pm

As others have said, there was never a pope...and I also don't ever remember Nabalungi "sliding" under the sheet...

[theaterdrew]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:41pm

Just saw the show (for the first time) and thought it was a lot of fun. The audience was maybe a little less than boisterous at first but really got going in the second act. Spooky Mormon Hell especially had everyone around me rolling.

Because I haven't seen the Broadway production, I can't compare, but I loved the guy who played Elder Cunningham. I dislike "obnoxious guy who is self aware he is obnoxious and likes it" and feared I'd see that, but he didn't play that at all. Elder Price was fine but I suspected I'd see a stronger performance if I'd been able to catch the OBC. Neutrogena/Nancy Drew was good but her breathing distracted me. Elder McKinley stood out to me, too.

Does the Broadway playbill have three pages of advertisement from the Mormon Church?

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 12/13/12 at 11:58pm

Glad you had fun!

As fo the ads: No, but the tour does (at least in Los Angeles and San Francisco).

[My Oh My]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 2:54am

"I sat in the balcony."

And that would explain why you thought you saw the pope and some chick sliding and flying all over the place, lol.

Not that sitting in the nosebleeds is bad. With the ridiculous pricing these days ($400 for a good orchestra seat in L.A.), I, a musical theatre fanatic, missed a brand spanking new show for the first time in a long while when I decided to forget seeing the L.A. stop of "Mormon."

That was a first.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 12:15pm

To continue on my earlier, buried thread about the first preview, I thought this Chicago version was as good or better than the Broadway production (I saw the original cast). Ben Platt succeessfully takes a role that was written to be "the obnoxious fat guy" and turns it into something new. He plays Cunningham as an Aspergers-type kid with a lot of nervous energy, desperate to fit in and be loved. He was very sweet and totally owned the audience after "Man Up."

Nic Rouleau is an ideal Price. He has a great look for the role with a huge pearly-white smile and squeaky-clean personality. He is very much like Andrew Rannells while making the role his own.

Syesha Mercado was very good, as was the rest of the supporting cast. Pierce Cassedy was a slightly less flamboyant but still funny McKinley.

Seeing it again, I have to say that it really may be the funniest show ever written. BTW, don't sit in the first balcony if you can avoid it--the entire top third of the stage is cut off and I couldn't see people's heads when they were on the platform doing the Mormon history vignettes.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 3:02pm

Something about seeing the show in such a larger theater than the Eugene O'Neill left something to be desired as well.

While it is larger (it seats around 1800), it doesn't look massive by any stretch, and is comparable to many of the theaters on Broadway.

On Broadway, the top of white proscenium and the angel is flush with the top of the actual proscenium. But at the BoaT, there is a good 20 feet of space above the top of the church arch. They filled it in with a planetary/space scene. I thought that was funny.

Ummm...that sounds exactly like the Broadway set-up.
BOM - Broadway Proscenium

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 9:53pm

My Oh My, I said I sat in the balcony for the Chicago show, NOT the New York show. I sat in the mid-orchestra at the O'Neill.

I saw one of the very early previews on Broadway, so perhaps the Pope was taken out early, or perhaps all of you are correct and I just thought I saw what I saw!

And Fosse76, I appreciate the picture of the O'Neill stage; the Chicago set-up has a good 15-20 feet above the angel. Notice how the top of the angel is flush with the proscenium? That's what I was talking about. It makes the planets (and the planet jokes) more prominent. Also, I would say that an 1800 seat theater vs. a 1000 seat theater is a fairly large difference. The overhang of the of the mezz at the O'Neill is the 11th row. The overhang of the mezz at BoAT is the 18th row. And not only that, BoAT has THREE balconies, while the O'Neill only has one.



Distinctive mentioned that the upstage scenes are cut-off if you're in the first balcony. They are also cut off in the top of the second balcony too.

Despite all of my nitpicks, it is still a great show to see in Chicago! I agree with the poster who said Cunningham owned the audience after Man Up.

[CrazierThanYou]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 11:32pm

Haven't seen BOM in Chicago yet, but having seen several other shows in the theatre, I'd have to agree and say the sight lines are AWFUL!

I've never been in the balcony, but if you're near the middle or back of the main floor, the balcony overhang cuts the stage height in half.

Luckily I don't believe BOM utilizes a lot of scenes with high platforms. (Jersey Boys on the other hand.....)