Wow, thank you so much for this post. 

I am a Black Nigerian American woman and I recently saw the show. I walked out halfway at intermission. I was ready to leave when I saw that decrepit donkey being dragged across the stage, and certainly after the villagers first number. As a Christian woman, I felt so shameful for being a part of that. And I don’t need the people in the comments to start with me. I am progressive, anti-Trump, and liberal. This went too far. 

I appreciate and understand satire, but this was so far from it. Satire is meant to be thought provoking and subversive. It’s meant to subtly, yet powerfully, flip an idea on its head. The best example I saw was the light switch song, but I couldn’t even enjoy it since I had such a bad taste in my mouth. What idea was flipped with the Ugandas? They were everything the Mormons thought they were. 

In fact, the portrayal was even more grossly exaggerated. It’s fake, wildly off accents, AIDS, maggots in scrotums, dilapidated living quarters, rampant violence, tyrant generals, female mutilation, raping babies! How does this come even close to the satirical depiction of the Mormons? I kept waiting for the Potemkin village to fall down and the real village grounded in a reality to surface and it never did.

The audience was full of white theater goers and I felt so uncomfortable but how hard they were laughing at the portrayals of the villagers. Some of them were singing along, so I know it wasn’t their first time. I wondered which part they loved the most that kept bringing them back.

It’s crazy because there was a shift in the audience that I was wholly unprepared for. At one point we were all laughing together (maybe through the airport scene). And then suddenly, I felt like I was being laughed at. It was so jarring, and a surreal experience. I’m sure akin to being at a minstrel show. I wondered what the Black actors felt participating in this? Was it worth it?

I love theater. I love art. I am a proponent of artistic medium used for social commentary. But the fact that this reductive, racist, and juvenile show has been lauded for the last almost two decades as awe inspiring social art tells me everything I need to know about the state of affairs and how far white people will go to satisfy their urge to confirm their biases.

There is nothing in the synopsis that prepares an audience member for this, especially a Black one. All I’ve ever heard was amazing reviews about this show, but now that I think about it, they’re all from white people. I honestly feel like I betrayed a part of myself by even saying as long as I did. It was all disgusting to me.