Heavenly Irreverence Returns: The Book of Mormon at Sydney's Capitol Theatre.

We first encountered The Book of Mormon in one ot its original Broadway runs in 2015 - a biting winter evening in New York, where the theatre felt less like sanctuary and more like battleground. Even then, it was apparent that this was no ordinary musical: it was a holy riot. A hymnbook rewritten by heretics with jazz hands, a profane operetta of faith, folly, and the faint hope of redemption - however misspelled.

Now, over a decade later, its return to Sydney’s Capitol Theatre in 2025 is not simply a revival but a reaffirmation. The world may have changed, but The Book of Mormon remains audaciously, hilariously unrepentant.

The creation of South Park architects Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in collaboration with Robert Lopez (Avenue Q, Frozen), the musical has always wielded satire like a scalpel - sharpened by absurdity, softened by melody. It’s a work that dares to laugh at dogma, yet somehow finds empathy in the spaces between the punchlines. Behind the profanity, there is precision. Behind the shock, sincerity. And behind the caricature, a clear-eyed critique of belief, storytelling, and the American impulse to export both.

This latest Sydney production delivers all of that with renewed vigour. There’s nothing rote about it - no autopilot here. What stands out most is the detail: tighter timing, crisper choreography, and performances that feel lived-in, not merely rehearsed.

Sean Johnston’s Elder Price is all gleaming teeth and glossy ambition - a Ken doll with a Messiah complex. But there’s more than plastic perfection under the pressed whites. His performance is layered with just enough hairline fracture to suggest something deeper: doubt disguised as devotion, a crisis camouflaged in charisma. Vocally, he’s pure Broadway voltage - gleaming, gymnastic - but it’s his comic timing, honed to a scalpel’s edge, that really cuts.

Nick Cox, as the irrepressible Elder Cunningham, is all fidget and flair - his awkwardness weaponised into charm. But what’s striking is how he tempers the goofball energy with a surprisingly moving pathos. Yes, he invents scripture featuring hobbits and Vader, but it’s not just for laughs. There’s something devastatingly human in his desire to be believed, to be loved, to be seen - even if he has to lie his way into mattering.

As Nabulungi, Paris Leveque sidesteps caricature and gives us a heroine full of lyricism and quiet power. Her rendition of “Sal Tlay Ka Siti” could’ve been a punchline - but she plays it straight, as a ballad of real longing. In a show that delights in pushing buttons, she presses pause, and the result is unexpectedly affecting.

Sydney’s finest missionaries have landed - delivering gospel, giggles, and just the right amount of holy mischief.

The ensemble?

Sharp as a missionary’s side part. “Turn It Off” gets the full jazz-hands-as-therapy treatment, repression never looking so choreographically slick. And “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” - equal parts acid trip and guilt spiral - plays like Busby Berkeley meets Dante’s Inferno, with tap shoes.

Direction by Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker remains as agile as ever, gliding along that treacherous edge between satire and sincerity. The choreography doesn’t just support the jokes - it is the joke, transforming absurd premises into kinetic punchlines. And crucially, this production doesn’t feel like it’s trying to shock anymore. It knows the world’s changed. The provocation is less about gasps now, more about winks - and that lands even harder.

Visually, it’s still the technicolour toybox we remember: Scott Pask’s pop-up-book sets, Ann Roth’s send-up-of-sincerity costuming, Brian MacDevitt’s glowing lightscapes - all preserved, all effective. The aesthetic hasn’t aged - it’s ossified into something iconic.

And then, of course, there’s General Butt-F***ing Naked - played with unholy relish by Augie Tchantcho - swaggering through the narrative like a machete-wielding fever dream. It’s ridiculous. It’s grotesque. It’s precisely the point.

But beneath all the chaos and camp lies something stickier. The Book of Mormon doesn’t endure because it shocks - it endures because it stares into the absurdities of faith, doubt, colonialism, and longing, and somehow finds a warped sort of grace. It ridicules the systems but not the souls. It mocks the myths, but never the need for them.

And that delicate balancing act? That’s on the cast. They play the whole unruly symphony with conviction and restraint, letting the satire sing without ever losing the tune. Their delivery is confident but never smug, irreverent but never hollow - always in service of the story, the rhythm, the punchline.

So when the curtain dropped at the Capitol Theatre on opening night, the applause felt more than perfunctory - it felt like catharsis. In 2025, this irreverent, outrageous musical still feels weirdly essential. Maybe because it’s never just been a satire. It’s always been a hymn in disguise.

Sydney, your missionaries are back. And yes, the gospel still slaps - if anything, even harder now.

Tickets are available via https://thebookofmormonmusical.com.au.

---

Words and photo by AW.