Tear Jerker / The Book of Mormon

Relating to the Broadway Musical

For an irreverent, swear-happy, comedic musical, Trey Parker and Matt Stone as usual can really pack it in with the emotionally heavy stuff when it needs to.

• "Sal Tlay Ka Siti" is pretty heartrending when one considers the implications that Nabulungi's mother is dead and that her standards for paradise on earth are so heartbreakingly low that the poorest areas of nearly any developed nation on earth would vastly surpass them.
• Elder Cunningham has a lot of these moments.
  • When he mentions his father isn't proud of him during "I Am Here For You", saying he feels like his father is stuck with him, and that what Cunningham wants is to made his dad proud.
  • When Elder Price blows up at Cunningham at the end of Act One, he ends up pushing a Trauma Button for Cunningham by saying he's "stuck" with him, which Cunningham confided in Price was what Cunningham's own father said he felt like. Elder Price immediately regrets it and tries to walk it back, quickly saying "I didn't mean to say 'stuck'" in an apologetic tone right after his outburst, but it's too late; he said it, and he can't unsay it. That's when their relationship really begins to fray.
    Cunningham: Well, I mean, we just became best friends a few days ago.
    Price: I'm not your best friend! I just got stuck with you by the Missionary Training Center!
  • Cunningham accepts this, mentioning he's used to being treated like this by past 'friends', and proceeds to break down in tears after he's left alone onstage, and sings a whimpering reprise of "I Am Here For You". Trey Parker and Matt Stone sure know how to make a woobie.
• Nabulungi's short reprise of "Hasa Diga Eebowai" after she learns the truth about Elder Cunningham's Mormon stories may take the cake. Taken up to eleven when seen live, what with the actresses perfectly portraying broken hope that was so build up in Act One, often breaking down in tears as they sing. The lyrics really don't help.
  Nabulungi: I'm such a fool, to have followed this advice...
  There is no trip to Paradise.
  How could I let my hopes get so high? Hasa Diga Eebowai!
  Hasa Diga Eebowai!
  You gave me a dream, but it was all a lie!
  I think you like to see me cry...
  Hasa Diga... (runs offstage)
  • Doubles as Fridge Brilliance when you remember that "Hasa Diga" means "Fuck you." She was not talking to God that time.
  • The line directly before this reprise isn't much better:
    Nabalungi: You have crushed my soul. I hope you all had a good laugh.
• "Turn It Off" is pretty depressing. The other Mormons have pretty horrible lives: one had a drunken father and a battered mother, the other missed the death of his sister to buy a smartphone, and the other is a closeted gay, and they've taught themselves to suppress their sadness.
  • The fact that said sister's last words were "Where is my brother?".
• Sweet, high-strung, Camp Gay Elder McKinley offhandedly mentioning he has the Hell Dream nightly.
  • Especially sad since Mormonism still excludes LGBTQ people, and Elder McKinley is convinced that he's damned simply because he is in love with his best friend and he feels obliged to deny his true feelings.
• It's pretty hard not to feel bad for Elder Price after having his dream crushed and faith in God obliterated.
  • His reprise of "Orlando" is heartrending, especially when compared with the original in "Two By Two". His words to Elder Cunningham beforehand aren't much better when he breaks down about how he always struggled with faith but always worked hard regardless to get to his dream.
    Elder Price: (painfully tries to sit after removing the Book of Mormon) I can't even get a ticket home.
• "Hasa Diga Eebowai" is a song that can only be sung by a bunch of desperate angry people, but one part really expresses that fact.
  Ugandans: If you don't like what we say,
  Try living here a couple days
  Watch all your friends and family die;
  Hasa Diga Eebowai!
  (Fuck you!)