Theater Review: Avenue Q
By Dan Nailen
02/03/10 - 09:56 AM
Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the Tony-winning musical Avenue Q knows this is not the type of show that comes to Utah very often.
Now that I've seen it, it's safe it's not the type of show that ANY place gets that often.
All I knew going in was that it was a bit of a send-up of Sesame Street, with puppet characters and humans living together on a street in some unnamed outer borough of New York City. And I knew, thanks to a constant drumbeat by presenters Broadway Across America-Utah, that Avenue Q is for "mature audiences" and that some material would be deemed offensive by many of our local citizenry.
Usually I think such warnings are unnecessary, but not so much with Avenue Q. I was ready for some salty language—hell, I revel in it—but I wasn't quite expecting the hilarious, acrobatic and semi-explicit puppet sex, performed to the ribald tune "You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)." I certainly wasn't offended by anything in Avenue Q, and neither was the vast majority of the audience nearly filling Capitol Theatre on opening night. But a few folks did take their leave early.
Their loss, because Avenue Q is much more than simply a gimmick; it has messages of acceptance—both racial and sexual—interwoven throughout its comical song-and-dance efforts, and it ends with a surprisingly satisfying climax, even for those of us who usually hate Hollywood happy endings.
Most of Avenue Q's story revolves around Princeton, an underemployed fellow with an M.A. in English who moves to Avenue Q at the show's outset. There he meets a mix of humans and monsters that includes interracial couple Brian and Christmas Eve, porn-obsessed Trekkie Monster, young schoolteacher Kate and an "are they or aren't they?" duo, Rod and Nicky.
(Oh, and Gary Coleman is the characters' apartment building superintendent, which is probably hilarious in most towns, the idea that a child star ends up a glorified janitor on the outskirts of New York. But considering the real Coleman lives rather notoriously in Utah, I found it a distraction—I kept waiting for someone on stage to somehow recognize that Coleman's a local.)
As Princeton searches for his purpose in life, he falls in and out of love as the characters around him go through their own travails, driven by the "Bad Idea Bears," two adorable scamps who encourage the characters to drink, screw or hang themselves—yes, there is some dark humor here.
Like the inspiration Sesame Street, though, the characters' travails end up with valuable lessons for the audience. Lessons told through songs like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," "The Internet is for Porn" and "There is Life Outside Your Apartment."
The set is relatively simple; interior scenes like bars and bedrooms take place right on the main street set, only appearing when needed. Most impressive is the collection of performers who act as both puppeteers and vocalists—often using their pipes to voice a puppet that actually resides on one of the other actors' hands. Jacqueline Grabois, who voiced Kate Monster and Lucy among many others, deserves special kudos, as does Brent Michael DiRoma, who does double-duty as Princeton and the sexually confused Rod (that's Rod holding the book in the photo above, along side Kerri Brackin holding Nicky).
Avenue Q runs through Sunday, with matinees as well as night shows on the weekend, at Capitol Theatre. Tickets are available through ArtTix outlets.
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Reader Comments:
Yup, the couple next to our party stomped out with their coats at intermission.
But an even more odd observation was: Did you notice how many obscenely obese people were in the audience? Two of them squarely (literally) in front of me and five right behind me. Apparently the love-lorn cat ladies have all become musical geeks.
Otherwise a very, very funny show.
We saw this show in New York a few years ago and LOVED it. We always wondered how the traveling groups compared to Broadway and let me say, they are just as good if not sometimes even BETTER. This show was right up there with Broadway performers. I applaud Salt Lake for bringing this type of show to the area. We drive from Idaho Falls to see our shows and this show was refreshing and fun. Worth the trip.