Book of Mormon

[thatguy]

I'm not a huge South Park fan. Neither am I much of a fan of musicals. We tried to see this when it came to SF a few months back, but the tickets were ridiculous. I knew someone that paid near $400/ticket. That's f'ing insanity to me. We were in London, and everything is pricey, but we didn't pay anything close to that. Which, I'm sure, allowed me to enjoy it more. I was really entertained. The Brits let you drink your booze right there in the theatre. They are truly civilized...

Oh, did I mention that I went to the theatre with Helena Bonham Carter? I was sitting in my seat. There was a row in front of me, then the path to the side doors, then the orchestra pit. She came in the side door with a couple other people and stopped right in front of me. Looks exactly the same in person as in most of her films. Then they walked along the row front of me and sat down in the middle of the middle section. Right there, with all the common people. She, too, seemed to be enjoying the performance.

Oh yeah, the performance. Silly, irreverent. I had just found the Monty Python Neal's Yard landmark just blocks away in Covent Garden a few days earlier. And also watched part of a BBC programme called "Holy Flying Circus" (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Flying_Circus">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Flying_Circus</a><!-- m -->) earlier in the week. This seemed very much in that spirit.

If you can get cheap tickets, I'd recommend it.

[youtube]xLb7_UrV3-A[/youtube]

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

I'm soooooooooooooooooooo jealous.

[El Dingo]

I saw a pirated recording of it. I love Matt and Trey (and musicals) but I was underwhelmed. I felt the songs put being offensive over being catchy. The story taking place in Africa was 'too safe' (ridiculing Mormonism in Uganda softens the blow). "South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut" had such great music it was really disappointing (with the exception of the opener "Hello" which is awesome).

In the same vein "Jerry Springer: The Opera" is brilliant!

DM: I still have it somewhere (I think) if you want it.

[Drunk Monk]

i'm still crushing on helen.

:oops:

she won me over again with bellatrix.

[cranefly]

The Lady and I saw this last night. It was fun, and expensive.

We were in the 2nd row of the balcony, which is a long way away. As the Lady pointed out afterwards, the acoustics weren't great. I suppose for an auditorium of that size, there are limits to what you can do. I was surprised by how audible most of it was, occasionally even too loud. Some of the quieter segments were hard to hear.

I'd pretty much agree with El Dingo that they went a little too much for the obvious and easy laughs. Still, it mostly had good energy.

Afterwards, the Lady confided that she could never completely embrace the upbeat ending. I was feeling the very same thing. The play seemed to be trying to say that, yes, it's a fucked-up religion, but hey, if the followers finally get their hearts in the right place, they're doing good despite proselytizing a bunch of bullshit and spreading it everywhere. That's just too much of a stretch for the Lady and me. We wished the play had stuck to its satirical guns beginning to end, taking no prisoners.

Still, an interesting and educational evening. I was familiar with some aspects of Mormonism, but hadn't realized just how crazy the central myth gets. It gives Scientology a run for its money.

P.S. I would have liked the show even more than I did if Helena Bonham Carter hadn't sat down in front of me and blocked my view.