Entertainment :: Theatre
Avenue Qby Kilian MelloyWednesday Nov 18, 2009 There’s a song in the three-time Tony winning Avenue Q in which the various characters--mostly puppets, but with a few humans mixed in--yearn to return to their carefree days back in college. The drawback: they’d feel out of place, now that they are older.
Don’t worry that this wild, sassy riff on Sesame Street will leave you feeling like an adult stranded among six-year-olds. The play is a free-for-all that celebrates the messy aspects of adulthood, even though the muppet-like puppets operated and voiced by the cast may recall sultry Miss Piggy (here reborn as Lucy the Slut), Big Bird and Cookie Monster (combined into a big, shaggy, profane monster fellow named Trekkie Monster), and Bert and Ernie (imagined here as an odd couple, with Rod the fussy, closeted Felix-alike and Nicky the sloppy, straight Oscar type). Avenue Q bears as much relation to Sesame Street as a stiff belt of scotch does to apple juice.
Like a tasty single-malt, Avenue Q shrugs off the sunny cloying sweetness of its childish inspiration, while retaining complexity and punch. How else to account for lively "educational" songs that tell us that "Everyone’s a little bit racist," or cartoon asides exploring numbers ("One night stand!") and moral concepts like "Purpose"--an existential bugaboo that keeps cropping up for fresh-faced college grad Princeton (voiced and operated by Brent Michael DiRoma)?
Princeton is new to the neighborhood. He’s come to Avenue Q because the rents are cheap; in other words, unlike kiddie show districts populated by magical, doll-like beings, Avenue Q is something of a slum, with our characters living in a pair of adjoining tenements run by Gary Coleman (Nigel Jamaal Clark), an embittered former child star. Princeton’s neighbors include the sweet-natured Kate Monster (Jacquelyn Grabois), married human couple Brian (Tim Kornblum who looks as sweet and cuddly as any muppet) and Christmas Eve (Lisa Helmi Johanson), porn-addicted Trekkie Monster (Jason Heymann), and the always clashing best friends Rod (DiRoma) and Nicky (Heymann).
Everyone here has dreams, broken though they may be; Brian once envisioned himself as a standup comedian, Kate wants to open a school for disadvantaged monster children, and Rod dreams (sometimes literally, as in one fanciful sequence filled with dry ice mist and romance) of Nicky. Everyone also has frailties and vices: egged on by the cute but evil Bad Idea Bears, they drink, they have sex (loudly), they contemplate suicide. Even without the Bears to push them into moral turpitude, the denizens of Avenue Q are strung out and stressed out by all the same ills that everyone else faces: poverty, lust, unrequited love, the fear of being alone, the fear of being tied down. (In a borrowing from The Electric Company, two silhouettes mouth single syllables to form a new word. Him: "Come." Her: "-mitment.")
But as with all good morality tales, love is in the air and the lovers, beset as they are by fear and confusion, make a go of it: booze and the siren song of a higher purpose and racial differences notwithstanding, Princeton and Kate seem destined for one another... if, that is, Lucy the Slut (Grabois) doesn’t break them up in pursuit of her own amusement.
The cast display a dazzling array of talents: bounding off Anna Louizos’ cartoony and yet authentically grimy-looking set and then magically reappearing moments later from some other nook or cranny, singing, dancing, and puppeteering away, the actors are endlessly energetic. They’re dressed by costume designer Mirena Rada in simple gray garb (if grey is the new black, theirs is the new kabuki) and lit by Howell Brinkley.
Dancing with a puppet on your arm has to be a hard skill to hone, but the cast make it look effortless, stepping their way through Ken Roberson’s choreography with flawless poise.
Not once does the show’s energy slow down, which is a testament not only to the stamina of the actors--many of whom take on more than one role--but also to Jason Moore’s direction and to the live orchestra that are tucked out of sight but who, despite not being seen, are most definitely heard through a club-quality sound system (ear plugs might not be a bad idea).
Avenue Q is everything you hope for: a delight to the child you were, and a comic extravaganza for the cynical adult you’ve become. Platitudes are few, and morals are minimal--thankfully--but the songs (by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx) and the book (by Jeff Whitty) are nothing but clever, demanding (and getting) ambitious staging and delivering plenty of laughs.
Avenue Q plays through Nov. 22 at the Colonial Theatre, located at 106 Boylston Street, in Boston’s Theater District.
Tickets cost $42.50-$87.50 and can be obtained at the Colonial Theater Box Office (Mon.-Sat., 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.) or purchased from Ticketmaster via phone, at 1-800-982-2787. Tickets may also be purchased online from BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com/Boston
Performance schedule: Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday at 2:00 and 7:30 p.m.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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