THIS "BOOK OF MORMON" IS A ROCK SOLID SHOW

By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com

 

photo from Broadway in Tucson

These young men may look like normal Mormons now, but wait when they reach Uganda!

 

The A Team has landed at Centennial Hall for an energetically hilarious weekend of performances in “The Book of Mormon” presented by Broadway in Tucson. Even if you already saw this “Book” the last time it was here, you gotta go see this production.

Everybody talks about the Broadway shows they saw on Broadway but this one right here on the University of Arizona campus is every bit as good. I promise.

If Kayla Pecchioni who plays the village girl Nabulungi isn't a Broadway star by the year 2020 there is no justice in Mormon Heaven, or any other. With a voice athletic enough to be in the Olympics and a gleaming stage presence worthy of the most outrageously priced ticket, Pecchioni will make a believer of the most jaded and cynical.

But wait, there's more. The three main guys, playing Elders Price, Cunningham and McKinley, are all good enough to be deserve Pecchioni's winning ways.

Kevin Clay as Elder Price has a soaring voice, and Conner Peirson as Eder Cunningham, the goofy one who saves the day, has comic timing that fills the hall with warmth and humor. Andy Huntington Jones as the sexually repressed Elder McKinley gets a star moment, too, in “Turn It Off.”

The rest of the cast from top to bottom performs with conviction. The completeness of this effect is rather remarkable.

As for that controversial content, “The Book of Mormon” has been winning the hearts of Doubting Thomases for so many years (it has been running on Broadway since 2011) nobody doubts the sincerity of the show's creators, Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.

Parker and Stone, of course, are most famous for creating the red-faced neighborhood TV series “South Park,” which has stayed popular long after its scatological shock wore off. Lopez is “one of the uproarious brains behind 'Avenue Q'.”

After all, the Mormons do save the distressed African village because of their faith. And all the outrageous insults (if you take out the swear words) are just good- natured kidding about some of the more eccentric parts of Mormon theology.

Seeing this show a second time, you begin to appreciate the quality of the songs – all done in good old Broadway tradition – and the choreography credited to co-director Casey Nicholaw.

Parker and Stone are not so famous somehow for their movie “South Park: Uncut,” which has five distinctly different Broadway-style numbers. These two guys love all the heritage of the Great White Way. So “The Book of Mormon,” really, is their personal rose of appreciation.

Performances continue through Sunday, April 8, at 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday in Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. on the UA campus. Tickets are $35-$125. For details and tickets online, broadwayintucson.com

One particular detail, along with the usual profanity are several F-bombs. But on this occasion, the show is so entertaining God will probably forgive you.