{"id":16237,"date":"2011-07-12T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T20:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=16237"},"modified":"2011-07-13T14:40:02","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T19:40:02","slug":"my-book-of-mormon-the-musical-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2011\/07\/my-book-of-mormon-the-musical-post\/","title":{"rendered":"My Book of Mormon: The Musical Post"},"content":{"rendered":"
I know I\u2019m totally late to <\/span>The Book of Mormon: The Musical<\/span> party. The media has done it to death, the Bloggernacle has discussed it to death, and the Tonys awarded it to death. It\u2019s provide huge amounts of press to the Church and at least one great interview on <\/span>The Daily Show<\/span>. I read most of the press obsessively for about a month. However, if I go to New York this summer (a small but distinct possibility), I probably won\u2019t see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But not for the reasons that you might think. Or at least not entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

See, I don\u2019t like musicals. During the seven or eight years I lived in New York, I probably saw four or five Broadway shows. <\/span>Thoroughly Modern Millie<\/span> (first wedding anniversary), <\/span>The Man of La Mancha<\/span> (brother-in-law was in town, he wanted to see it), <\/span>Hairspray<\/span> (rush tickets with my wife and another couple), <\/span>Movin\u2019 Out<\/span> (more on that later). Oh, and <\/span>In the Heights<\/span>, because my sister\u2019s firm took summer associates there and they had a couple extra tickets.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the shows we saw, <\/span>Movin\u2019 Out<\/span> was probably my and my wife\u2019s favorite. <\/span>Movin\u2019 Out<\/span> was a musical featuring the music of Billy Joel (played by a rock band on a stage above the stage) and the choreography of Twyla Tharp (performed initially by the leads of several New York-based ballet and modern dance companies).<\/span><\/p>\n

After seeing it, I started looking at the reviews in <\/span>Time Out New York<\/span>. (Note that the <\/span>Time Out<\/span> series of magazines have a bunch of separate review sections. Among other things, they have a section for food, for dance, for theater, for movies, for music, and for comedy.) The theater reviewers <\/span>hated<\/span>, <\/span>hated<\/span>, <\/span>hated<\/span> Movin\u2019 Out<\/span>. Their review was, essentially, Don\u2019t see this show.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dance reviewers, on the other hand, loved it. It was a starred review in the Dance section.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings me to the idea of priors: our perception of things depends, in large part, on what we bring in with us. Why did the theater reviewers hate the show? My guess is because it wasn\u2019t a very good Broadway musical. There was a guy above the stage who sang all of the songs. The show had a story line, but the dancers communicated it through their movement. If I remember correctly, in total, the people on stage said one line. There was no banter, no singing voice other than the pianist\/singer\u2019s, the sets and the action were impressionistic. It\u2019s what you would get if you saw a modern dance piece set to a dozen and a half Billy Joel songs.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the dancing and the choreography: they were spectacular. Twyla Tharp is an incredible choreographer, and the people on stage were some of the best dancers in New York, home of some of the best dancers in the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

Remember how I said I don\u2019t really like musicals? That\u2019s probably part of the reason we liked <\/span>Movin\u2019 Out<\/span> so much. I valued the music and my wife the dance. And the show didn\u2019t do any of the things that musicals do that annoy us. But those same qualities are likely what annoyed the theater critics so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the reason I probably won\u2019t go see <\/span>The Book of Mormon<\/span> is because all of the reviews rave about how, other than the profanity and the obscenity, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez have made a quintessentially Broadway musical. And, thanks to my priors, that\u2019s really not what I want to see.<\/span><\/div>\n

N.B.: Even though I’m using The Book of Mormon: The Musical as my hook, I’m not really interested in discussing whether it’s a good show (it apparently is), whether Mormons can, in good conscience, go see it (some apparently do), or whether, on the whole, it’s good for the Mormons or bad for the Mormons (yes). Those discussions have happened all over Facebook, blogs, emails, etc. Instead, I’m interested in how the preferences we bring with us affect how we perceive things, and whether there are any particularly Mormon preferences that affect our consumption of culture and stuff.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know I\u2019m totally late to The Book of Mormon: The Musical party. The media has done it to death, the Bloggernacle has discussed it to death, and the Tonys awarded it to death. It\u2019s provide huge amounts of press to the Church and at least one great interview on The Daily Show. I read most of the press obsessively for about a month. However, if I go to New York this summer (a small but distinct possibility), I probably won\u2019t see it. But not for the reasons that you might think. Or at least not entirely. See, I don\u2019t like musicals. During the seven or eight years I lived in New York, I probably saw four or five Broadway shows. Thoroughly Modern Millie (first wedding anniversary), The Man of La Mancha (brother-in-law was in town, he wanted to see it), Hairspray (rush tickets with my wife and another couple), Movin\u2019 Out (more on that later). Oh, and In the Heights, because my sister\u2019s firm took summer associates there and they had a couple extra tickets. Of the shows we saw, Movin\u2019 Out was probably my and my wife\u2019s favorite. Movin\u2019 Out was a musical featuring the music of Billy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16237"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16245,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16237\/revisions\/16245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}