Review: THE BOOK OF MORMON at Broadway San Diego

The cast of THE BOOK OF MORMON is here to say “Hello” at Broadway San Diego through September 24th.  As outrageous as ever, but with some timely but minimal updates this show about some mismatched missionaries is still an energetic, and entertaining road trip show about faith and friendship.

This show now, as it was when it premiered in 2011, is a show that gleefully looks for ways to shock and awe.  Written by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez, the musical is irreverent and deliberately shocking,  as if to deliberately get the audience to at some point ask “Did that really just happen?” While it may not be for everyone, this musical has plenty of devoted fans, some of whom even came to the theatre cosplaying as characters.

When “perfect” Mormon missionary Kevin Price (Sam McLellan) is assigned Uganda as his location he is more than a little heartbroken he wasn’t given his beloved Orlando, Florida instead.  His dismay is doubled when he is assigned his missionary partner Arnold Cuningham (Sam Nackman) who is socially awkward and has a tendency to make things up when he can’t think of what to say.

When they arrive in Uganda, they find that succeeding in their mission is even more dire, as they deal with theft, disease, and a warlord who is slowly taking over villages.  They also meet Nabalungi (Keke Nesbitt), the daughter of Mafala (Lamont J. Whitaker) a leader in the remote village. Between the poverty, the disinterest of the villagers in their mission, and how they react to difficulty and each other the two find that maybe “Heavenly Father’s” plan for them is different than they each thought when starting this journey.

Yes, it sounds heartwarming and sweet and it is, but it is also crass and in your face as only the creators of “South Park” could create it. The Mormon origin story is told correctly at first and gets more and more skewered as the show goes on, but it is careful not to mock that particular religion specifically but religions as a whole.

The show has a few updates to make some of the characters and events less clichéd  - Nabalungi now has an iPad instead of a typewriter, and Facebook gets mocked as the main source of disinformation, among other things.   It is a hard needle to thread though, because part of the story is that we are seeing these characters through the lens of these sheltered, American missionaries, and that perspective changes as the show goes on.  None of these changes impact the main arc of the show, and while some of them work, I would argue not all of them are as empowering as they may think.

Musically this is a challenging score to sing, especially for the two leads who are almost always on stage.  McLellan has a confident, “all-American high school quarterback” vibe to his Kevin Price, while Nackman’s nervous and awkward Arnold finds confidence in himself to teach the villagers about the church (with a dash of Star Wars, The Hobbit, and Star Trek) with hilarious results.  

The standout is Nesbitt as the sweet Nabulungi, who is the first to believe in these two and convinces the others of her village to listen to them as well.  Her belt is gorgeous and clear and the audience cheered at the end of “SAl Tlay Ka Siti” (Salt Lake City).

The choreography by San Diegan Casey Nicholaw is high energy, and clever.  The theme park cuteness of “Two By Two” where all of the missionary partners are excited to start their journey (before the reality of it sets in) is one of my favorites.

How to Get Tickets

BOOK OF MORMON from Broadway San Diego is playing at the San Diego Civic Theatre through September 24th.  For ticket and showtime information go to www.broadwaysd.org 

Photo Credit: Sam McLellan, Keke Nesbitt and Sam Nackman in the national touring production of THE BOOK OF MORMON. (Courtesy of Juliet Cervantes)

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