The Good Book

We drive to Los Angeles to see the musical, Book of Mormon. My wife has been dying to see this production for nearly two years, and bought tickets as soon as she heard it was coming to Los Angeles. The anticipation is killing her; for her this is like having seats directly behind home plate for a World Series game.  Book of Mormon, hottest ticket in LA, sold out Pantages Theatre. We’ve left our children with their grandparents, after advising them not to bicker and fight – or else there will be hell to pay when we get back. (Our bark is many times worse than our bite, and our children ignore us most of the time.) 

Before we reach Ventura, my wife already has two text messages from the children, each accusing the other of cruelty and mistreatment.

I always enjoy venturing into the area around Hollywood and Vine because it’s a former haunt of the late Charles Bukowski, one of my favorite writers. Legend has it that Buk used to drink at the Frolic Room, a bar next door to the venerable Pantages.  The art deco theatre opened in 1930 and was owned by RKO. We’ve got ninety minutes before the show so we head for Dillon’s Irish Pub at the end of the block.

A hostess with ink designs on both shoulders ignores us for a moment; she has blonde hair but her face has an Asian cast. Finally acknowledging our existence, she dismissively says the wait is fifteen minutes; in order to place our name on the wait list we have to show ID. It’s LA, so, whatever; hand over the driver’s license.

There are flat screen TV’s everywhere, some tuned to college football, others to soccer. We find two empty stools at the bar; Real Madrid is playing Real Zaragoza on the screen above our heads. A striking brunette in a short kilt takes our order for iced tea.  Like every other waitress and female barkeep, she has the look of an aspiring actress, dancer or XXX film hopeful. None of the girls are older than twenty-five; I presume most are college students. Showing cleavage is obviously as much a job prerequisite as being able to balance a tray full of empty beer mugs, and some of the cleavage has been surgically augmented; dramatic eye makeup and false eyelashes don’t hurt, either.  Play the slutty Irish serving wench to the hilt and tips will follow. A man sitting to my wife’s left is pulling for Real Madrid, and he’s happy because the club is leading Zaragoza, 2-nil; the man on my right is eating what smells like corned beef and cabbage. We sip our iced tea and watch the waitresses hustle between tables, the bar, and the kitchen. The section on the second floor is full of guys wearing Real Madrid jerseys; Cristiano Ronaldo’s number 7 is very popular. I can’t count the number of beers on tap – it looks like every continent and nation is represented, amber and dark, pale, and of course the Guinness is flowing freely. A digital clock counts down the hours until St. Patrick’s Day.

The interior of the Pantages is breathtaking and takes one back in time to an era when motion pictures were gaining popularity, and Hollywood was just beginning to establish itself as the world’s dream factory. We’ve seen a few musicals here, and yet each time the place stops me in my tracks. The crowd is mixed, elderly and young, straight and gay, white, black and Asian, filing in and claiming their seats. I can feel the anticipation growing, but I wonder if some of the older patrons realize what they’re in for, a few minutes hence, when the lights go down and the music comes up; Book of Mormon is a scatological extravaganza, and for the next hour and a half or so the word “fuck” will cascade from the stage. Fuck you God, fuck you Jesus, fuck you and you and you, too.

I remember seeing Mormon missionaries in Tokyo when I lived there in the late 70’s and early 80’s, pairs of young white men in white shirts, black ties, and black slacks, carrying their sacred book and trying to convince Japanese people that Mormonism was the path to happiness and salvation; I saw them in train stations and shopping areas, on streets where few foreigners were ever seen.  

I start laughing ten seconds into the first number and hardly stop until intermission. Joseph Smith and the fable of his digging up gold tablets in his pasture is satirized, as is the idea that Jesus Christ walked the North American continent, way back when. I still have trouble believing that an entire religion is based on these improbable yarns, and even more trouble with the idea that American voters might elect a Mormon president. We aren’t that desperate or gullible, are we?

By the time the number Hasa Diga Eebowai is performed my sides are hurting from laughing so hard. Roughly translated, Hasa Diga Eebowai means – at least in the context of this musical – fuck you, God. This is not the upbeat Africa depicted in Disney’s Lion King, this is not “no worries for the rest of our lives,” this is AIDS and famine and want and death, and in this hopeless hell hole, a middle finger raised to the heavens makes sense.

At intermission the crowd surges for the lobby and the restrooms. Although venerable and historic, the Pantages is desperately short of toilets and by the time we reach the lobby long lines have already formed. Restroom queues are always worse for women, longer and slower moving. My wife turns west and I turn east, and the lobby is so jammed with bodies that I wonder if I can reach the bathroom, take a piss, and get back to my seat before intermission is over. I fear getting stuck in line behind some old guy with prostate issues.

When I finally get back to my seat my wife is nowhere to be seen. Most of the patrons in the immediate vicinity are checking their cell phones. What critical information have they missed in the last hour or so? My wife returns. A few rows in front of our seats, an elderly man and his wife are having an argument, though they are doing their best to appear not to be arguing. The woman appears to be telling her husband to calm down, take it easy, not be offended by the foul language or the gay overtones; this man may be the only unhappy person in the entire theatre, a curmudgeon who can’t, or won’t, allow himself to cut loose and laugh.

The second act is as satisfying as the first. The choreography is crisp, spot-on, and the actors are in fine voice; they look like they are enjoying themselves, giving their all to the show and the audience, and they deserve the standing ovation they receive. Bravo. I could easily see this production again. My wife is thrilled; the long wait was worth it.