Theater review: Saturday’s Voyeur 2014 at Salt Lake Acting Company

Saturday’s Voyeur, Salt Lake Acting Company’s annual skewering of Utah culture and a major fundraiser for the theater company, always relies on the news for inspiration.

Happily, writers Nancy Borgenicht and Allen Nevins were handed a heaping plate of Zion-inspired “news of the weird”-type headlines in the year since last summer’s Mitt-centric version of the show. With gay marriage arriving in Utah, Sen. Mike Lee working to shut down the federal government, the push for the priesthood from some women in the Mormon church and a Riverton beauty queen busted for making bombs, the two had plenty to work with in addition to the typical silliness always delivered by the Utah Legislature and their leadership, ie. Gayle Ruzicka.

From back to front, left to right: cast members Olivia Custodio, Austin Archer, Leah Hassett (back row) Justin Ivie, Jaron Barney, Eb Madson (Moroni), Hayden Warzek, (3rd row) Jenessa Bowen, Angela Chatelain Avila, Connor Norton (2nd row) Latoya Rhodes (in front)

The 2014 version of Voyeur brings back some characters from the Mormon church office building featured in the past couple years, giving Voyeur regulars reason to cheer for the hilarious returns of Nephi Jensen (Austin Archer), the swinging proxy-baptism executioner, or Elder Marriott (Just Ivie), the Fox News-loving closeted worker bee who, along with Fletch (Alexis Bague), is putting together a Modesty and Values pageant in honor of Sen. Lee (Eb Madson). Also back is the partying Moroni (also Madson) who lives in the basement along with the ghost of a church docent (Jenessa Bowen).

Plot is always secondary to saucy one-liners and big production numbers, and that’s certainly the case across the three acts of Voyeur 2014. There were some fun running gags of people trying to break into a version of “Let It Go” from Frozen before being shouted down, or Pharrell’s almost-as-ubiquitous “Happy.” Several of the songs provided highlights through the actors’ voices and choreography tackled by director Cynthia Fleming. I particularly liked “Yellow Air Alert” (sung to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”), “Life Before Gays” (sung to “Those Were the Days”) and “Rockbusters” (think “Ghostbusters”) sung to commemorate the Goblin Valley rock-tippers.

Cast members Olivia Custodio, Jaron Barney (in front), Connor Norton, Angela Chatelain Avila, Leah Hassett, Latoya Rhodes (behind)

The energy of the actors is always undeniable during Voyeur shows, and this year is no different. Newcomer Olivia Custodio deserves special notice for her role as the liberal Mormon Sister Marriott, and the interactions of Ivie as Elder Marriott and Bague as Fletch were consistently hilarious. Hayden Warzek and Jaron Barney got a lot of mileage in their roles as gay cast members of Broadway’s The Book of Mormon who take jobs at the church office for the health insurance, and Leah Hassett is winning as Miss Riverton, Kendra.

This year’s Voyeur is stronger than last year’s. And while some of the Mormon jokes went over my head as someone with little knowledge of the faith’s history or theology beyond what I’ve picked up just living in Utah, much of the proceedings are rooted in news events familiar to anyone at least halfway paying attention to life in Utah in 2014. Saturday’s Voyeur remains a vivid and fun reminder that the conservatives that seem to run the state aren’t the only ones living here.

Saturday’s Voyeur runs Wednesdays through Sundays at Salt Lake Acting Company until Aug. 31. Visit SLAC’s website for showtimes, tickets and more information. Photos courtesy of Salt Lake Acting Company.