Reviews 2008
Reviews 2008
✭✭✭✭✩
music and lyrics by Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx,
book by Jeff Whitty, directed by Jason Moore
Dancap Productions, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
July 29-August 31, 2008
“What if there were a show like “Sesame Street” for young adults?” That is the conceit behind Avenue Q, the clever, quirky musical that won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2004 now playing in Toronto courtesy of Dancap Productions. Humans interact with puppets in discussing such issues as racism, homosexuality, homelessness and porn all in the tuneful, wide-eyed style of kiddie shows. The constant source of humour is the clash between the innocence of the presentation and the seriousness of the content.
We follow the story of the puppet Princeton (Robert McClure), fresh from university and unemployed, as he moves into Avenue Q, the only run-down neighbourhood in New York where he can afford to live. There he meets the failed human comic Brian (Cole Porter) and his human Asian-American girlfriend Christmas Eve (Angela Ai), puppet kindergarten teacher Kate Monster (Anika Larsen), closeted gay Republican puppet Rod (also McClure) who has a crush on his slacker roommate Nicky (David Benoit), the porn-addicted puppet Trekkie Monster (also Benoit) and their building superintendent, former child star human Gary Coleman (Danielle K. Thomas). Together they sing such catchy, perky songs as “It Sucks to Be Me,” “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” “The Internet is for Porn” and “Schadenfreude.” With its adult content, expletives and an extended, very funny puppet sex scene, this is not a show for children.
What is unusual in spoofs like this is that we actually care about the main characters Princeton and Kate Monster. Will he find his “purpose”? Will they finally fall in love? This is due in large part to the wonderfully exuberant performance of McClure and Larsen, who immediately draw us into their characters. Unlike “Sesame Street” the puppet manipulators are fully visible and unlike the best puppet shows, say by Ronnie Burkett or Puppetmongers, we don’t come to focus on the puppets themselves as characters as much as on the actors performing their roles. Nevertheless, this is a totally winning, gleefully irreverent show that beneath all the fun bravely tackles the distinctly non-Broadway musical theme of why life doesn’t measure up to our expectations of it. As one character says, “If kids knew what life was really like, they wouldn’t want to grow up.”
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2008-07-30.
Photo: Anika Larsen with Kate and Robert McClure with Princeton. ©Peter James Zielinski.
2008-07-30
Avenue Q