‘The Book of Mormon’ Is a Musical for Mature Audiences Only
The Broadway production still filling theaters nearly fifteen years after its release
Seeing The Book of Mormon in 2025 is an interesting endeavor for a lifelong fan of South Park. As a spiritual successor to the season seven episode “All About Mormons,” the story behind the enduring, serial Tony Award-winning Broadway musical began all the way back in 1999 with South Park: Bigger Longer, and Uncut.
As a feature-length film that celebrated its own theatrical release, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was not only among creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s first ventures into the world beyond Comedy Central, but their first foray into the world of musicals for mature audiences.
It wouldn’t be until 2011, though, that the comedic duo, alongside songwriter Robert Lopez, would grace the world with what may be the most flagrantly offensive musical ever brought to Broadway.
For someone who’s never been to Broadway, it may come as a shock that plays and musicals often celebrate tenures in New York City theaters that span entire decades. In a way, the theaters and the productions performed within them stand as time capsules fixed at the center of the world’s most ever-changing metropolis.
The last play I saw there was Wicked. It was in fifth grade on a hectic class field trip, and what appears to be the same banner for the same show still hangs prominently along the exterior of the same theater. It’s unmarred by time’s passage, verdant and resistant to the frenetic walls of neon in the bustling city all around it.
Released all the way back in 2011, seeing The Book of Mormon musical was a mission that sat on the back burner since I was still in junior high school. It was the rare production to intrigue my timorous adolescent self. But by the time a pandemic swept the world, I’d feared that I’d lost my opportunity to densely pack into an auditorium full of freethinking thespians and South Park aficionados.
Going into the show with any prior experience of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s abrasive antics, it’s unlikely that the contents of the show will arrive as much of a surprise. But for anyone who wanders into that theatre without being given proper viewer discretion, they’re likely to find something jarring in the singing, gun-wielding character “General Butt Fucking Naked.”
But while Stone and Parker are undeniably crude, they’re very rarely thoughtless. From South Park and BASEketBall to Orgazmo and Team America, the humor is often childish. But in their best moments, the satirical titans drive home important truths about the world with their content and have even affected political change with their more biting deep dives into issues.
At the heart of The Book of Mormon is a scathing critique of the titular, sacred book of the Mormon religion. The musical mimics the doctrine and tells a jovial story that anyone sufficiently well-versed in South Park will likely find familiar. But its intent isn’t exactly to surprise the audience. It falls predictably into an old formula.
One of the aspects that makes the production most impressive, though, is that at the end of the day — it does feel like a musical. No matter how many obscenities, strap-on sex props, or objectified frogs find their way onto the stage, it’s every bit as much a musical as its more traditional cousins a few blocks over.
The sequences for songs like “Turn it Off,” “Baptize Me,” “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream,” and “Tomorrow is a Latter Day” each come equipped with all of the creative theatrics and stage designs that people have grown to expect of high-budget stage productions.
The combination of Parker and Stone’s outrageous satire with the Mormon characters’ G-rated sensibilities creates a hilarious dichotomy. Additionally, the discordant mix of musical elements with the two creators’ unrestrained flair for comedy is something surely to be memorable for those who, like me, hadn’t yet seen the show in the shameful 14 years since its release.
One of the most distinguishing aspects of Stone’s and Parker’s work is that it’s almost invariably pointed toward a greater end. While the plot is one that’s easily summarized, the religious arguments at its heart are as thoughtful as the creators. It explores the notion that religions change over time.
The lead Mormon missionaries, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, played by Kevin Clay and Cody Jamison Strand, are assigned to a post in Uganda. As a rift forms between the two characters when they realize the futility of their mission, Elder Cunningham begins incorporating elements from the world’s great fantasies into his preachings about the religion.
Once the deceptive elder works the realms of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter into the central doctrine, it suddenly begins appealing to the local villagers more than the real words within the book. They begin romanticizing Salt Lake City, Utah as an AIDS-free Utopia and idolizing Yoda. They start to believe that their ascension to heaven will be on a Star Trek-styled spacecraft.
By the end of the musical, the Ugandan villagers walk away with their own, loveably contorted version of the sacred Mormon religion. The production drives home an exaggerated truth about the way that beliefs transfer between borders and cultures — how they evolve over time and between translations.
Though The Book of Mormon isn’t the thought-provoking masterpiece of the century, there’s hardly a more riotous way to spend a few hours in New York City. It’s certainly not every production that achieves roaring, standing ovations, packs theaters nearly fifteen years after its release, and has just shy of ten Tony awards to its name. That the irreverent play has made its way to cities across the world is only further proof of its lasting impact and its unique role in the world of theater.
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