Another big day as we shoot out the door to hit Harry's Bagels. The debate over fluffy vs. chewy continues. Then onto TKTS at Lincoln Center where we got the line talking about plays to see. So many but mostly revivals and adaptations. 😔. We settled on an off-Broadway matinee The Twenty-fith Annual Putnam Spelling Bee ($60 each but not a big hit) and, for evening, The Book of Morman, which, oddly, in the 15 years it's been playing, we have not seen.
Now, The Book of Morman is so well produced and such a Broadway spectacle it's hard not to enjoy. The Southpark humor is much more low key than I expected, and the Idiot white Americans "colonizing" ignorant Ugandans with their absurd religion is a pointed social commentary. References to widespread AIDS, female circumcision and men having sex with babies are pointed, even if only parts of the country did the last two. But the depiction of Ugandans - think 19th century British caraciture, is more troubling.
I’m ambivalent about a lot of PC stuff but going in I was mindful of the following: In 2023, a letter was written by orphaned children living at the Love Uganda Foundation, a charitable NGO in Uganda supporting children who lost parents to HIV/AIDS.
"We feel very sad and embarrassed to know that this is the way part of the world sees us and laughs at us. Some of us are angry and upset too. This is seen every night on Broadway? This has gotten so many awards? It is such a stereotypical view of what Africa is. The writers do not understand what it means to be Ugandan or live here.
It is not brave to make fun of people who have no way of answering back.”
How relevant is that to the way we are treating the world today? So sad. So, I enjoyed the satire of Morman and it was a brilliant play. Just troubling in the rear view mirror, as satire often is for me.
On to a walk in Central Park, Simply Noodles for dinner and Morman at night.Read more
April 3 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C