Missionary Men With Confidence in Sunshine

This is to all the doubters and deniers out there, the ones who say that heaven on Broadway does not exist, that it’s only some myth our ancestors dreamed up. I am here to report that a newborn, old-fashioned, pleasure-giving musical has arrived at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, the kind our grandparents told us left them walking on air if not on water. So hie thee hence, nonbelievers (and believers too), to “The Book of Mormon,” and feast upon its sweetness.

Now you should probably know that this collaboration between the creators of television’s “South Park” (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and the composer of “Avenue Q” (Robert Lopez) is also blasphemous, scurrilous and more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak. But trust me when I tell you that its heart is as pure as that of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show.

That’s right, the same Rodgers and Hammerstein who wrote the beloved “Sound of Music” and “King and I,” two works specifically (and deliciously) referenced here. Like those wholesome, tuneful shows, “The Book of Mormon” is about naïve but plucky educators set down in an unfamiliar world, who find their feet, affirm their values and learn as much as they teach.

Of course different times call for different contexts. So instead of sending a widowed British governess to a royal court in 19th-century Siam or a nun in training to an Austrian chateau, “The Book of Mormon” transports two dewy missionaries from Salt Lake City to 21st-century Uganda.

And rather than dealing with tyrannical, charismatic men with way too many children, our heroes (enjoyably embodied by Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells) must confront a one-eyed, genocidal warlord with an unprintable name. And a defeated, defensive group of villagers, riddled with AIDS, who have a few choice words for the God who let them wind up this way. And local folks like the guy who keeps announcing that he has maggots in his scrotum. That’s enough to test the faith of even the most optimistic gospel spreaders (not to mention songwriters).

Yet in setting these dark elements to sunny melodies, “The Book of Mormon” achieves something like a miracle. It both makes fun of and ardently embraces the all-American art form of the inspirational book musical. No Broadway show has so successfully had it both ways since Mel Brooks adapted his film “The Producers” for the stage a decade ago. Directed by Casey Nicholaw and Mr. Parker, with choreography by Mr. Nicholaw, “The Book of Mormon” has its tasty cake (from an old family recipe) and eats it with sardonic relish.

If you know “South Park,” the 14-year-old animated sitcom about four naturally impious young lads, then you will know that Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone take a schoolboy’s delight in throwing spitballs at things sacred, including most major religions. But you also may have gathered that these men take equal pleasure in the transcendent, cathartic goofiness of song-and-dance numbers. (As students they collaborated on the low-budget film “Cannibal! The Musical,” and their 1999 feature-length film, “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” is one of the best movie musicals of recent years.)

As the composer of “Avenue Q” — which took public-television-style teaching songs out of the kindergarten and put them into post-collegiate urban life — Mr. Lopez helped bring to Broadway young adults who had grown up on “Sesame Street.” And Mr. Nicholaw has demonstrated an affinity for savvy, high-energy musical pastiche with his work on shows like “Spamalot” and “The Drowsy Chaperone.”

Now, as a team, Messrs. Stone, Parker, Lopez and Nicholaw have created the ideal production for both the post-“Avenue Q” kids — the ones who wallow in the show tunes of “Glee” without shame and appear on YouTube lip-syncing to cast albums — and their older, less hip relatives. “The Book of Mormon” is utterly fluent in the language of musical entertainment from vaudeville to anthem-laden poperettas like “Les Misérables” and beyond. And it uses this vocabulary with a mixture of reverence and ridicule in which, I would say, reverence has the upper hand.

Which brings us, inevitably, to the issue of sacrilege. This show makes specific use of the teachings of the Mormon Church and especially of the ecclesiastical history from which the play takes its title. Church founders like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young appear in illustrative sequences, as does Jesus and an angel named Moroni. When delivered in musical-comedy style, these vignettes float into the high altitudes of absurdity.

But a major point of “The Book of Mormon” is that when looked at from a certain angle, all the forms of mythology and ritual that allow us to walk through the shadows of daily life and death are, on some level, absurd; that’s what makes them so valiant and glorious. And by the way, that includes the religion of the musical, which lends ecstatic shape and symmetry to a world that often feels overwhelmingly formless.