When I heard rumors last year that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of South Park, were teaming up with Avenue Q-s Robert Lopez to write a Broadway musical, I all but shit myself.

Then I found out that the subject they were taking on was the ethics of organized religion, and I did shit myself. A few days later. In an unrelated incident.

South Park is well-known for its brazen crassness and gross-out humor. However, many people who don’t watch the show aren’t aware that it has a brain. And more shocking still, it has a heart.

From war to marriage equality to racism, South Park takes on some of the most controversial issues of today, treating the taboo with brash and unflinching casualness, and something else–a cocky and unapologetic sense of rationality. At the end of the day, South Park aims to teach us something. To expose some inconsistency or injustice, and to preach basic humanist values.

Another highlight of the show that often escapes notice is the spectacular music, usually co-written by Trey Parker and Hairpsray‘s Marc Shaiman. The two have lent their songwriting talents to various episodes of South Park, the full-length feature musical South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, and Parker and Stone’s other notable film project, Team America: World Police. Their combined love of musical theatre provides us with number after Broadway-style number that serve as ironic vehicles for sharp and witty lyrics, while nodding rather sincerely to traditional showtune sensibilities.

Fuck me, this is my first Broadway review, I’m getting off-topic. Try to stay with me here.

Where was I? Book of Mormon. Right.

The South Park team has impressed me time after time by producing classically musical songs with hilarious lyrics that offer a biting commentary on the human condition while maintaining an undertone of complete sincerity.

After reading that description back, it only makes sense that they should team up with the co-creator of Avenue Q, most honest, witty, hilarious, sincere, politically incorrect musical I’d ever been exposed to. Before Book of Mormon.

The thought of what these three would do together was enough to reduce my consumption of pornography to nearly zero. I’m not certain what units you’d use to measure that sort of thing, but it’s probably not a thought worth pursuing.

Suffice it to say, the three did not disappoint. In fact, they managed to blow me away despite my already sky-high expectations. What they put together can only be described as the new standard for 21st century musical theatre–for what a musical can be when it is done absolutely right.

The show follows the journey of Elder Kevin Price and Elder Arnold Cunningham, two Mormon boys who are about to begin the traditional period of missionary service required of all young Mormon men. I’ll refrain from exposing too many plot points, but just to be safe, I’m going to throw out a spoiler alert. Wow, that was awesome. I feel like a little kid whose mom is dating a cop and caves to his NOT-MY-FATHER’s cheap attempt to earn his affection and gets to turn on the siren.

Highlights of the Soundtrack

Out of laziness, and respect for the experience of going-in-clean, but mostly laziness, I won’t review every number in depth. I’ll just talk about my favorites.

The show begins with “Hello,” the anthem of the door-to-door salesmen of salvation. A chorus of doorbell chimes accompany Elder Price, who leads in the demonstration as a his peers echo various snippets of pre-approved Mormon dialogue. The peppy, melodic introduction picks up a rolling snare and morphs into a march as the the chorus of Mormon boys politely explain the benefits of their religion. A parade of voices that are clearly sporting crisp ties and fresh haircuts, grand-marshaled by Elder Price, eventually culminates in the title of the show sung in a choral plagal cadence, a deliberate tip-of-the-hat to classical christian hymns.

The next number could be my favorite. “Two By Two” covers the pairing of boys and their mission-location-assignments. Starting out as a ballad in which the well-intentioned but narcissistic Elder Price highlights his ambitions, the song picks up with a light, syncopated high-hat and a playful clarinet as boys are paired off and assigned their locations — Norway, Paris, Japan. The gleaming, hand-clappy, I-iii-IV-V chorus is an immaculately catchy masterpiece, guaranteed to bounce around smiling inside your head for weeks to come. The bright-eyed boys harmonize gleefully about their duties as “the army of the Church of Jesus Christ,” and then after a short pause, the hurried parenthetical “of Latter Day Saints.”

After a few pairs are sent off on their way, the song returns to ballad format as Elder Price sings his desire to be sent to Orlando, land of Seaworld and Disney, before the song returns to its duty and pairs him off with the bumbling, idiotic Elder Cunningham, and sends them off to…you guessed it! Uganda. Oh yeah, and there’s a hand-clap break.

The next song really worth mentioning is “Hasa Diga Eebowai,”an instant hit, and an obvious and spectacular send-up of “Hakuna Matata,” in which the Ugandans explain to Price and Cunningham their method of coping with the suffering they face every day. Accompanying the celebratory brass section, traditional African choral harmonies, djembe drums, marimbas, and gourd shakers contribute to the joyful authenticity of the number. An authenticity that is unshaken and unquestioned until we learn that the mantra the Ugandans are singing translates to “Fuck you, God.” After the song’s secret is revealed, its sing-along structure and wholesome melody are pitted against a level of disblieving “oh-no-they-didn’t” delight as the verses become more and more vulgar. The pairing of lyrics about AIDS and female genital mutilation with tribal exclamations of “wey-oh!” will leave you giggling incredulously in your seat. Write a song about violently sodomizing the almighty? Oh yes, they did.

The other contender for greatest song is “All-American Prophet” an absolutely infectious 1970′s-style R&B number sung by Elder Price to the Ugandan villagers. A by-the-Book accurate–but still adequately ridiculous–retelling of the story of Joseph Smith, the “blonde-haired, blue-eyed voice of god,” the verses occupy a jaunty, soapbox preachy, spoken-word format reminiscent of the Music Man gem, “Ya Got Trouble.” Elder Price advertises the Book of Mormon as the third part of the trilogy of the bible–the Return of the Jedi of the holy scriptures. Surprisingly, the tongue-in-cheek ribbing of Mormonism and American nationalism doesn’t interfere with the unabashed, showstopping grandeur of the number. This one is a great example of what Book of Mormon has done for musical theatre–saying “Yeah it’s over-the-top and we can make it ironic but fuck you, you know you love it. I saw you clapping your fucking hands.”

“Making Things Up Again” is a solid number that would deserve more praise if it didn’t stand in the shadow of the other titanic insta-hits that make up the show. Lyrically,though, this is the most important song in the musical. Elder Arnold Cunningham, a slacker who has limited knowledge of Mormon scriptures, attempts to make them relatable to the Ugandan villagers by adding a few things. In order to prevent a man from raping a baby as a supposed AIDS cure, Arnold makes up a story that places Joseph Smith in the same situation, telling the man that Smith’s AIDS was cured by sex with a holy frog. His fable works, and Arnold sees the potential to do good with a few little white lies. He prevents another man from circumcising his daughter by inventing another bible verse about a man who faced the wrath of god for performing the same procedure. He weighs the good he is doing against his guilt at telling lies as the chorus warns him to “be careful how you proceed.” This number is the center of a three-song arc that is the basis for the show’s message, the first being “All American Prophet” and the third being–

In “Joseph Smith American Moses,” the Ugandan Villagers decide to honor the missionaries with a rendition of the story of Joseph Smith a la “Small House of Uncle Thomas” (The King and I). The djembe drums, rainsticks, and tribal vocalizations return in a fusion of ritual performance and 1970′s Afrobeat as the story is narrated and acted out by various villagers. Their version is a modification of the story told in “All-American Prophet,” with Elder Cunningham’s amendments added in. Possibly the most outrageously funny number in the show, it switches between verses of tribal percussion and humming and a chorus that sounds for all the world like a genuine Fela Kuti performance. Their portrayal of Joseph Smith is an obvious tribute to Fela, made more obvious by exclamations like “Liberation! Equality! No more slavery for upstate* Mormon People!”

*pronounced “oop-stet” by the villagers.

As the retelling of the story reaches the fabrications of Elder Cunningham, we’re faced with the ridiculous imagery of Joseph Smith being commanded by the lord to have sex with a frog to cure his AIDS, then using the frog to cure Brigham Young, whose nose was transformed into a clitoris by god. This is not only hilarious, but eye-opening. The simplistic and unquestioning retelling of such unbelievable events is reminiscent of many passages of the bible, and we–Parker, Stone, and Lopez’s unwitting students–realize that this is how religion is created, how it mutates. Fables created to teach lessons are interpreted literally and accepted as historical fact, then revised. This is how Judaism gave birth to Christianity, and how Christianity gave mutant-birth to Mormonism.

Oh, and while we’re contemplating all of this, we’re treated to a pounding, percussive chant of the symptoms of dysentery–”Shit go in the water/Water go in the cup/Cup go to the thirsty/Shit go to the stomach/Blood come out the butt.”

The number ends with the Mormons reaching Sal Tlay Ka Siti (Salt Lake City) and a reprising “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” in which they sing, in hilariously simplistic terms, about the importance of creating large families in Mormon society.

At the end of the finale, “Tomorrow is a Latter Day,” we’re presented with an image of the future: the Ugandan villagers traveling door-to-door in a reprise of “Hello” in which they attempt to share the word of their prophet, Arnold Cunningham, through the book of their new religion, the fourth book, The Book of Arnold. If that doesn’t wrap up the show with a card and a bow, I don’t know what would. The message is simple and the metaphor is expertly crafted. It makes us laugh and it makes us think.

If I had to select a single number to represent the tone of the musical, it would be the exhilarating and heart-warming “I Believe,” a ballad which shows Elder Price overcoming a crisis of faith–a faith in something that is difficult to take seriously. The song exemplifies the duality of the show; simultaneous criticism and celebration–of religious beliefs and of gaudy theatre conventions.

And this what 21st century musical theatre–I’d go so far as to say 21st century media–can and should be. In this time of comedy that is meta-upon-meta, self-aware and self-referential and ironic and sarcastic and smug, it’s an absolute delight to see a work of art that manages to entertain and educate, with neither purpose interfering with the other. A piece that appropriates the garish extravagance of old conventions and, rather than pursue a two-dimensional parody of them, embraces them and updates them. It breathes new life into them. Because while there are certainly numbers (“Man Up” and “I Am Africa,” for example) that revel in mocking meretricious stereotypes, you’ll find yourself smiling and bobbing your head to “Turn It Off” and dancing to “Tomorrow Is A Latter Day,” and you won’t have irony as an excuse.

This is intelligent art. This is 21st century art: eloquently dualistic; irony and sincerity locked in a simultaneous arm-wrestle and hand-shake.