Book of Mormon Audience Response Lately?

[Jay94]

I went to BOM on Thursday and the mixture of elderly people and shocked tourists resulted in what felt like a somewhat muted response. Has this been happening lately?
There was laughter but nothing particularly raucous and the feeling in the room when it was over reeked of, 'was that it'?

I still enjoyed the show quite a bit but would have enjoyed it more with a more receptive audience.

[LizzieCurry]

I've seen BoM at least once a month this year and I can't say there's necessarily been a trend as of late -- the kind of response you describe I even heard a couple times when the OBC was still there.

(Though granted, I haven't seen the show in about 3 weeks.)

[Scarywarhol]

I had no less than three family members come up to me at Thanksgiving to ask if I really though that Book of Mormon was "all that great." They all certainly had a "was that it?" attitude about the show. It's very good, but it's become just too big to be disarming or touching or surprising.

[ajh]

I saw BoM about a month after it opened and, maybe because of the extraordinary word-of-mouth on boards like this one and indeed most of the reviews, I went into the theatre with such high expectations that, perhaps inevitably, I was left with a slight feeling of "is that it". I did laugh alot and I enjoyed the score and performances alot but I didn't think it was the phenomenon that it was/is cracked up to be; it's a hugely entertaining show but there are better shows around. imho.

[jdrye222]

Most overrated show ever.

However, I also think that with the escalating devastation in Uganda especially with the gay death penalty, the show is more offensive than ever.
I'm someone with a good sense of humor, I love South Park, I love "wrong" humor.... but this Uganda **** is serious and I find the way it's treated in BOM to be massively insensitive and not even all that funny.

[darquegk]

I hate to sound cynical, but saying "satire about the near-unfixability of the political structure, unrest and violence in Africa should probably stop until it is fixed" is essentially saying "guys, we can't joke about Africa."

The bad news is, Africa is probably never going to be fixed. It's going to get better, and then worse, and then better again, but in proportion to its average of violence and chaos. It's not racist to point that out, the same way it's not racist to point out that there's never really been peace in the Middle East for thousands of years. Certain areas are just permanent hotbeds of political and social unrest because of competing social and ethnic groups, divergent political structures and wobbly borders.

It's horrible, yes. Someone should do something, yes. But eliminating satire on how "man, Africa is rough in some parts" doesn't really accomplish anything except have less people thinking at all about Africa to begin with.

[jdrye222]

darquegk -

I get what you mean, but the way it is treated in BOM does nothing to help the cause, it is just merely self-serving.
Satire's purpose is to shame its subject into improvement, or at least start a dialogue about it. The handling of AIDS in BOM does nothing to help it. The depiction of religious people exploiting needy demographics to brainwash them into believing anything is not called out. It is not intelligent satire, it's merely sophomoric humor at the expense of a tragedy.

[LizzieCurry]

The satire in BoM is much, much more on the side of mocking the "white savior" mentality than anything else. It's still appropriate.

[darquegk]

Yeah. Furthermore, the show's central message isn't that religion is a tool used for self-serving manipulation of the populace, it tends much farther towards "It's better to believe in something that might not be true, even if it seems a little silly, than to embrace pure cynicism."

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

At this point, the hype for the show is something that it could never live up to. What made it so riotous and fun in its first few months was how unexpected the humor was and (particularly in previews) that no one really knew what the show would offer or how funny (or unfunny) it would be.

The most vocal audience reaction I experienced at the show was the first time I saw it, in it's second or third week of previews. I've seen it three times since then and the audience response has been more and more muted each time I returned.

Also, now that it's the hottest ticket on Broadway, it seems as though elderly, presumably wealthy, people are buying tickets just for the sake of buying tickets and just to say they saw it. They really aren't the show's target demo and are most certainly not going to be very vocal during the performance.

[LizzieCurry]

Whenever I've recommended it to friends, I've told them not to listen to the hype, and that even though I obviously love it very much, do NOT go in thinking it'll be the greatest thing ever. Just go and enjoy.

(Generally this means positive results.)

I'm also wondering that since more people outside of lotto/SRO are more easily able to see it it multiple times, the laughter seems quieter because while it's still there, but it's not out of surprise anymore.

[Brave Sir Robin2]

I went with my Catholic mother, my godmother, my father, my best friend, and her parents. We all had a great time and no one was offended. I think it was very funny and Gavin Creel is perfect (no way around that), but I think the show was so-so. The performances and voices were strong, but it would not make my list of top ten favorite musicals. I didn't dislike it, but I was slightly underwhelmed.

[goldenboy]

Hype usually destroys ones enjoyment of a show. Hyped were Newsies, Peter and The Star Catcher and Once and didn't love any of them. Hell, I didn't even love Jersey Boys it was so hyped.
I do love Book of Mormon. It is well done, cleverly written and directed and hilarious.... but beware of hype. Hype kills.

[Younger Brother]

For anyone interested, Carly Hughes as joined the cast as Mrs Brown

[broadwayfever]

I saw it recently with a friend and we couldn't stop laughing. However, when I saw it with my Uncle many of the jokes went right over his head. He said he felt awkward because people were laughing around him, including myself, but that he wasn't getting many of the jokes. It helps if you have a little insight as to some of the things Mormons do and don't do.

[Phantom4ever]

Jonathan Swift proposed eating poor Irish babies as a way to solve the hunger problem in Ireland in "A Modest Proposal".

Swift's satire was successful in making a lot of people angry enough to start doing something about not only the hunger problem in Ireland, but also people's attitudes about it.

Now today we have Parker and Stone making jokes about raping babies (to cure AIDS) instead of eating them. Well, that is actually happening. If that makes some people angry, then satire has served its purpose. Hopefully people will leave BoM and think "damn that show was hilarious! But wait......are those problems real? Then maybe it's not so funny after all and something needs to be done about it!"

People can critize me for comparing Parker and Stone to Swift, but they are all satirists. Their ultimate job is to make people angry and act on it, not laugh.

[jarretSF]

Saw the show right after Sandy, it was the new Price standby's first performance, which I would have had no inkling of until Rory announced so during the Broadway Cares curtain speech. The audience was very involved and howling with laughter. Or maybe it was just me.

[LizzieCurry]

The first performance after Sandy was on Halloween, wasnt it? Kevin Duda was on that night. (I was there and Kevin was on, that much I know for sure. :) )

I think KJ's debut was November 3. https://twitter.com/kjhippensteel/status/264718473366761472

[jarretSF]

It was the first weekend after Sandy I saw the show, looking back at my FB check in Nov 3 is right. KJ was great.

[jazzynat]

Saw it for the first time this past evening, the audience seemed to really enjoy it. I thought it was great, there were a few times when I couldn't understand what was being said, but overall I thought it was hilarious.

Do they change some of the names that Elder Cunningham uses for Nabulungi based on the location (ie: Nancy Pelosi). There was one other SF reference that Price used in one of the early songs about where they might be going on their missions. Wondering if they try to throw in little local references when they can, we totally picked up on them and loved it.

For the record, I've seen two shows in the last 2 days and let me say the ushers here are NOTHING like the ones in NYC. They seat people in the middle of songs, they're running up and down aisles, totally distracting and they don't walk direct you to your section much less your row. So frustrating. I miss NYC ushers!!!

[artscallion]

Jazzy, They do change the names he calls Nabulungi...but not just for different locations. The Broadway based production is also constantly changing the names.
The reference to San Fran by the bay in the earlier song, is a set lyric for the song, Two by Two.

I really enjoyed the show when I saw it in NY this past summer. The audience was pretty responsive. I thought it was very, very funny, imaginative and well done. Totally enjoyed myself except for the nagging voice in my head throughout that while this is a really good show, it is not the second coming it's been made out to be.

The danger of big buildup is that few things can ever live up to the anticipation they cause. And that can be a disservice to a really good show. I think I would have enjoyed the show much more if that nagging voice had not been there.

[Vespertine1228]

I think it's more a case of people spending $160 nine months in advance without 100% knowing what they're getting themselves into. They're probably the same kind of people who brought kids to Avenue Q assuming it was appropriate for families because there were puppets.