Still offensive, still selling: How does The Book of Mormon stay relevant?

The books the cast brandish in The Book of Mormon, the foul-mouthed, screamingly funny and universally offensive musical written by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone with Frozen’s Robert Lopez, are, in fact, real. As in, they are really copies of The Book of Mormon, the 1830 holy text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

“In rehearsals, there were the few moments where we’d be having a little bit of downtime, or the director would be working with somebody else. And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll just flick through and read some parts of this book’,” says Sean Johnston, who plays leading man Elder Price in the current production of the show.

Life imitating art imitating life. And doubtless heartwarming to the real Church of LDS, whose relentless commitment to cheerful proselytising is the central gag of the show. To be fair, the Mormons have taken the whole thing pretty well.

“The Broadway musical opened right across the street from a Mormon church,” says Nick Cox, who plays Price’s nerdy sidekick Elder Cunningham. “And the Mormons also took out an ad in the Playbill, and they responded in really great spirit being like, ‘This is a really funny story. If you want to hear the real thing, please come visit’ – which is hilarious.”

The show opened in 2011, and while the Church of LDS took it in its stride, plenty of people were offended, particularly at the portrayal of the Ugandans whom the Elders are trying to convert. After the musical reopened after COVID-19 shutdowns, Stone and Parker tweaked the book to centre those characters more. But the substance is the same as it was when Mormon opened in Melbourne in 2017, setting a record for the highest-selling musical in the city’s history.

“I’ve had interactions with people at stage door, and some people say they saw it when it first came out, and they thought today it wouldn’t have been as good … or it would have been too shocking, but I feel like it’s aged so well. It’s still right on the edge, but still so relevant,” says Cox. “A good satire is always that fine line of proving a point while also pushing the boundaries. And I think that’s what makes the show so brilliant.”

Cox does not look like your typical Elder Cunningham, a role originated by Hollywood actor Josh Gad, who leaned into a portly physique and squeaky voice (you’ll know him as buck-toothed snowman Olaf in Frozen). So, how does Boston-born Cox telegraph to the audience that he’s a dork?

He laughs. “I knew that I definitely wasn’t the typical type for him, but I thought I’d like to work physically with my character,” Cox says. “Sometimes you go from like an inside-out approach, or you go from an outside in, and this one was very much an outside in. Once I found his physicality in the audition room, everything else was kind of informed by it.” He demonstrates his character’s awkward pose, hands halfway between his hips and armpits. “And once I unlocked how he stood and his nervous tics, I felt like everything else was informed by that.”

The play makes fun of Elder Cunningham, but he is also its emotional and spiritual heart. Johnston and Cox say that’s the secret to the show’s longevity – it’s crass but never cruel.

“The show makes fun of everything, but not in a way that’s meant to make anybody feel small,” says Johnston. “I think it does really good job of finding and pulling the humour from the truth of everything. We’re taking what is true and what’s real, and we’re blowing that up in a really funny way to shine a light on it.”

A lot has changed in the cultural landscape in the past 14 years, with more mainstream acceptance of “woke” cultural mores, and then a backlash to that. In an age where universities ban protests on campus and late-night comedians are pulled off air for jokes, could The Book of Mormon be written now?

“I’d like to think if something was as well written as this, and it wasn’t just crass for the sake of being crass, and there was a message, that it would have a place today, and people would respond to it,” says Cox.

Johnston agrees. “What made it so good was that it broke the kind of norm of what musical theatre was. It was so fresh and so new. And that’s what made it so exciting and so good, as well as just being a great piece of writing, it was because it was so new and fresh. So I think absolutely, if there was another show that’s fresh and exciting.”

And besides, Cox points out, it’s precisely the line-crossing nature of the show that makes Mormon work. “Audiences love danger,” says Cox. “It’s a safe danger, because it’s like, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to say that thing, no way!’ And so I think it keeps people engaged and on the edge of their seat. So I think this show would work today, and hopefully another one would as well. I hope another Book of Mormon-type of show comes around.”

The Book of Mormon opens at the Princess Theatre February 6.

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