South
Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are cannier than you
might think. Their stage musical about a pair of young Mormon
missionaries receiving a harsh dose of reality in rural Uganda sells
itself as satire, but in practice it simply presents the apparent
absurdities of the Latter-Day Saints faith without explicitly
ridiculing them. It is almost true to say that
The Lion King comes in for more
lampooning than the Mormons. The show works at root as a feelgood
evening, but one which successfully disguises its true nature by
eschewing genuine sentiment; that is what is really being parodied most
consistently, in a subtly defensive strategy.
Parker and Stone have astutely recruited Robert Lopez, co-creator of
Avenue Q, to give the numbers more
musical-theatre oomph. (Giles Terera from the West End production of
that show also crops up in the cast.) The lyrics remain a curate’s egg:
for every they-wouldn’t-dare coup such as rhyming “Life won’t be so
shitty” with “Salt Lake City” or an entire pseudo-African number, “Hasa
Diga Eebowai”, explaining the villagers’ philosophy of life which turns
out to translate as “Fuck you, God” (don’t claim to be surprised that
the show is so expletive-laden), there are a handful of lazy
half-rhymes simply to keep the song in question going. And at a few
moments one can discern hints that the project may have begun as a
satire on the writers’ more familiar target of Scientology before they
wimped out: the villain here, a local warlord, is both written and
played (by Chris Jarman) more or less as Isaac Hayes, the late voice of
Chef on
South Park and a
devout Scientologist.
That said, Parker and Casey Nicholaw’s production sells its bare-faced
cheek with enormous technical and performance flair (despite an
interruption due to tech problems on opening night) and a brash yet
disarming puerile charm. Gavin Creel and Jared Gertner, as smooth Kevin
Price and misfit Arnold Cunningham respectively, each have extensive
experience in the American production which opened almost exactly two
years ago; Alexia Khadime as the principal recruit among the villagers
has a similarly strong London record in both plays and musicals. The
total creation is neither as perfect nor as audacious as it pretends,
but it puts over the package so well that we either do not notice or do
not mind.
Written for the Financial
Times.