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The Book of Mormon [Ghostlight]
"Hello, my name is Elder Butt-F***ing-Naked." Three months ago you might reasonably have thought it unlikely for a show with such a lyric to nab a Tony Award for Best Musical and/or Best Score. Time to readjust your thinking.

No, that line admittedly doesn't sound too musical, look too clever, nor seem particularly jolly. That's where context comes in: "Hello, my name is Elder Butt-F***ing-Naked" is one of the most explosively funny lines in one of the most explosively funny musicals in memory. (I've been going to musicals since I was a wee tad in 1959 and I would place The Book of Mormon first, ahead of the original production of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, the Phil Silvers revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and The Producers.)

The award isn't for the best songs, or the best music or lyrics (or both); the award is for best score. "Score" meaning the 20 or so musical numbers that come across the footlights when nobody is talking; "best" describing how they contribute as a musico-dramatico element to the overall show. In the case of Mormon, the score provides perfect support. The show is so explosively funny (as above) because the book is explosively funny and the songs are explosively funny; so is the production, most especially the choreography and the costumes; and so are the performances. (Without going back to check, I'd estimate that at least 15 of the two dozen performers generate their own, specific, enormous laughs.)

	Matt Stone and Trey Parker
	photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Which is to say — getting back to the point — that the score is equal in excellence to the book, and that combination is what makes The Book of Mormon the most explosively funny musical in memory and the best musical in years. When I reviewed the opening, I noted that Broadway hadn't seen anything like it "since Mel Brooks came to town with The Producers, only Mormon has better songs." Far better songs; those in The Producers, to my ears, were workable but just barely.

Does Mormon have the best songs of the season? That's not the question. Mormon is one of those musicals which, by design, can't afford to have "best" songs; that is, songs which stand out for musical quality. Songs like those contained in Carousel, say, or The Light in the Piazza. Mormon has a score similar to How to Succeed. It is said that Frank Loesser was pulled unenthusiastically into that project. Frank loved nothing more than writing big, gloriously musical songs, like those in Guys and Dolls and The Most Happy Fella. And he knew that Succeed called for a score of diabolically clever novelty songs, the sort which by definition don't allow the baritone to stand at the lip of the apron and sing loud. That said, the How to Succeed score works excellently — as we can hear any night by simply walking over to the Hirschfeld — and Frank got a Pulitzer for his efforts.

Should Broadway have a Best Song Tony? The Oscar folks have given such an award since 1934, of course, but that is neither here nor there. Back in the good old days that old timers so loudly and vociferously miss, Broadway had worthy potential Best Song contenders every season, sometimes by the handsful. But that stopped in 1969 or so. As a recent Tony nominator, let me say we would have been hard put to find four Best Song nominees over the course of my three seasons combined. Quick quiz: give me four Best Song nominees for 2009-2010. To make it easier, let me remind you of the nominees for Best Score: Memphis, The Addams Family, "Enron," and "Fences."

	Robert Lopez
	photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

That said, the 2010-2011 season did — for a change — have a group of worthy Best Song nominees. And a clear-cut winner: John Kander and Fred Ebb's "Go Back Home," from The Scottsboro Boys. If the criteria for Best Song means a song so universal that it has meaning outside the show (and score), Mormon can't really compete. "Sal Tlay Ka Siti," Mormon's paean to that faraway oasis out in the mountain state of Ooh-tah, is lovely, heartfelt, and perhaps beautiful; but it doesn't have much meaning to a listener who hasn't seen the show. The same can be said for Mormon's rousing anthem, "I Believe." (While not Best Song fodder, I personally find "Hello" and "Turn It Off" to be perfect musical comedy numbers; two that would instantly earn the Frank Loesser seal of approval.) If four nominees were called for, I would off the top of my head add "Invisible" and "Island," from David Yazbek's Women on the Verge.

But we're not talking about the Best Song, or songs; we are talking about the Best Score. And The Book of Mormon wins hands down. While the Scottsboro Boys score has some high spots, it did not carry the evening; and the Women on the Verge score, simply put, did not register in the theatre. There is also a fourth entrant this season, thanks to that four-nominees-or-bust rule that put items like Starmites in the Tony Award record book.

Let us consider one musical segment, a Ugandan-style retelling of the Mormon saga entitled "Joseph Smith American Moses." As a song? Not distinctive. As a staged musical number? Six minutes of pure hilarity, climaxing the show. I recently went back for a second visit — one where I could relax, without my critic's notebook in hand — and observed that this had perhaps the biggest and the most raucous audience response in an evening filled with raucous response. The Book of Mormon musically succeeds — and boy, does it succeed — not because of the songs, but because of the score. That's Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone who wrote it. Yeah, they'll earn seven-figure fortunes for their efforts; nice, sure. But their work has also earned them the sincere admiration of the Broadway community.