It is pretty easy to spot the Mormon
gene in Elna Baker. She has a familiar perkiness and breathy, child-like voice
and uses two baby bottles and a diaper for props as she struts back and forth
under the lights in the tiny comedy club.
But the only clue that blond, fair-skinned Baker might be
part Mexican is the gauzy peasant shirt she wears for the late-night crowd near
Times Square. Oh, and the title of her stand-up schtick, "I'm a Mexican
Mormon."
It is a dissonance that Baker carefully exploits in her
one-hour show, slowly crafted during four years as a student in New York
University's Tisch School of the Arts. Last month, she performed "Mexican
Mormon" at Don't Tell Mama Theater on West 46th Street, and now she is
taking it on a national tour of college campuses. She plans to bring it to Utah
and other states with large LDS populations.
Baker, from a multigenerational Mormon family, was raised in
Seattle, Spain and England. She pokes fun at both sides of her family -- Dad's
Mexican, Mom's Anglo. She uses hilarious material culled from a lifetime of
dinner table talk, mother's lectures, a Spanish-speaking grandma and social
climbing at the local LDS singles ward.
But make no mistake. This show is neither anti-Mormon
sneering nor insider LDS jokes common in the burgeoning LDS film genre
exemplified by movies such as "R.M." It is sophisticated and urbane,
sometimes even raw, appealing to Mormon and NYU audiences. Sure, she deals in
stereotypes, but she explores universal themes of identity, religion, ritual
and, yes, the occasional absurdity of belief.
Not surprisingly, sex -- or the lack of it -- is at the core
of Baker's comedy.
"I go to church with 800 other single Mormons,"
where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does its best to play
matchmaker, she tells the audience at Mama's.
After-service social hour for these Mormons is often called
"Munch and Mingle." Or "Linger Longer." "Chat and
Chew," she says. "It's all about alliteration. If it were called 'eat
and talk,' no one would come."
They should just call it what it really is: "Mingle and
Marry. Eat and Elope. Consume and Consummate."
Many of Baker's Mormon friends swear they will have
"V.L." -- "virgin lips" -- until they are married.
" 'On my wedding night I will kiss for the very first
time,' they say. 'But not with tongue. Eeeeuw,' " she says. "I don't
understand these people. It's like people who do extra credit when they already
have an A."
If Mormon couples abstain before marriage, how can they know
if they are sexually compatible?
"Thank heavens, there's Cosmo's 'Ways to Tell If He'll
Be Good in Bed,' " Baker says. "I put them on flashcards and
memorized them."
She once dated a guy who hung an "I took the road less
traveled" poster in his room.
No, you didn't, she thought. "You bought a mass
produced poster about being an individual. Good job."
In the bedroom, such platitudes might abound, she fears.
"Come on, Elna. There is no 'I' in team. If at first you don't succeed,
try, try again. A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush."
Sometimes, Baker says, Mormon prohibitions cancel out her
Mexican lust for life.
"I got my tequila. I got my cigarettes. I got my
Mexican sex appeal," she says. "Wait. I can't drink. I'm Mormon. I
can't smoke. I'm Mormon. I can't have sex. I'm Mormon."
At dinner, the Anglo relatives talk about the weather and
the food but not each other.
"Emotion doesn't sit well with them," she says.
"I have an image of them, wrapping their heads with cellophane, wanting to
look good for the afterlife. But actually, they're suffocating."
Baker sees humor everywhere.
It makes God laugh to see her friend Mary Anne decorate her
rattail hairdo with rattail accessories, she says. "And so does the fact
that I'm Mexican and Mormon."
For the most part, Baker's NYU friends enjoyed the show, she
says. One told her, "You are the coolest religious person I've ever met.
You make belief seem like a good thing,"