Hi everyone, I can't believe it's July...come to think of that I think I've started all my Musical of the Month posts this year with practically the same sentence! But then this year is going super fast!!!
Well, anyway as it is July I suppose I should do June's Musical of the Month post. I'm going to keep it short as I've literally just published a blog about this musical (please click here to view). So what is it then...well to be honest I've only really been raving about this for the past week and a bit but the more I think about the show the more impressed I get, plus I am hooked onto the soundtrack...all of which explains why Book of Mormon has to be my Musical of the Month.
I was really unsure about this show when during the show itself and I left the theatre, however, now I've put my drama student hat on I can now see that what initially comes over as a great big ball of cheese, is actually a really intelligent piece of theatre, when you start to unpick it.
Firstly, it could be described as quite a postmodern musical...now I know from doing a whole module of postmodernism how difficult a concept it is to understand but for the purpose of this blog basically it means that the show has carefully taken bits from other places and inserted them into its own concept to create a fresh new show. After having the CD for Book of Mormon on repeat it's quite clear that there's a lot of cleverly taken ideas, for example: there are many references to The Lion King and Star Wars; the beginning of the song I Believe is rather like that of I Have Confidence from the Sound of Music; additionally, in the song Spooky Mormon Hell Dream there's part of the song Jesus Loves You, This I Know (just a children's religious song). To me, although this is copying, the way it is done just seems to make the musical a lot more interesting and exciting.
Another interesting part I found was the Starbucks coffee cups being placed in the Mormon hell. At the time I just thought this was weird but looking back it makes perfect sense and it's placing consumerism in hell...a rather intelligent concept.
I, also, liked the double meaning behind the majority of the songs, where basically the actions were telling a different story to the words. My favourite place for this was during Turn it Off as Elder McKinley sings about being gay as something wrong and how he's managed to turn off his gay-ness, yet he is exceptionally camp during the whole song. To me this really struck me as I thought it emphasised the point that you can't just turn off who you are more than if the show had just sung a straight meaning with no twist.
Finally, a I mentioned in my last review, I was amazed at how a show that takes the mick out of religion is actually remarkable religious in its message.
I am definitely thinking of like to see this show again (once all the hype has dyed down) to watch out for more clever bits. Overall, I think that the Book of Mormon is a show that can deliver on all levels (it can be cheesy for those who don't want to go to the theatre and think but, also, rather academic as well)...plus the music is addictive!!!
So that's it for June's Musical of the Month...I hope you enjoyed reading it...all that's left to do of for you to head off to The Prince of Wales theatre and when you have please either comment your views below or tweet me at @GreenGirlsRox.
Love you all
Kat
Xx
No comments:
Post a Comment