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music and lyrics by Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty, directed by Seanna Kennedy

Lower Ossington Theatre, Toronto

June 20-August 3, 2013, August 29-October 13, 2013 & December 5, 2013-February 23, 2014

Princeton: “Everything in life is only for now”

Avenue Q has already had two runs at the Lower Ossington Theatre and is now back for a third.  This Sesame Street for young adults won Tony Awards in 2004 for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.  The LOT productions boasts an extraordinarily talented cast and its 147-seat venue is an ideal place to see it.  It’s no wonder the show is so popular.

The show takes on the structure and presentation methods of Sesame Street with humans interacting with puppet humans and puppet monsters in a series of vignettes of lessons we can learn to help us through life.  The music of Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx is upbeat and perky in the style of television shows and Broadway musicals unaffected by the British invasion or hippie movement of the 1960s.  The characters, however, have found that a few simple lessons are not enough to help them cope with the problems life throws at them.  Unemployment, racism, homosexuality, homelessness, porn and the general feeling of lost ideals are not issues these twentysomething Sesame Street kids expected to encounter.  The disconnect between the breathless kiddie-show style the characters use to express themselves and the severity of the problems is what makes the show so funny.  Titles like “If You Were Gay”, “It Sucks to Be Me”, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, “The Internet is for Porn” and “Schadenfreude” give you an idea of the adult topics the characters sing about.  

We follow the story of the puppet Princeton (Graham Scott Fleming), who has just graduated from university with a B.A. in English and (surprise!) finds out there are no jobs for him.  He moves into Avenue Q, the only run-down neighbourhood in New York where he can afford to live and gets to know its mix of residents.  There is the failed human comic Brian (Mark Willett) and his human Asian-American girlfriend Christmas Eve (Amelia Hironaka), a clientless therapist; the puppet monster kindergarten teacher Kate Monster (Jacqueline Martin); the closeted gay Republican puppet Rod (also Fleming) and his closeted slacker roommate Nicky (Phil Skala), who has a crush on him; the porn-addicted puppet monster Trekkie Monster (Stephen Amon) and their building superintendent, human former child star Gary Coleman (Natasha Strilchuk) from Diff’rent Strokes. 

Princeton realizes via a video cartoon that he needs to find a “Purpose” in life in order to give his life “Meaning”.  As he falls in love with Kate Monster, it doesn’t occur to him that she could be that purpose.  Despite a hilarious wild sex scene between them with “full puppet nudity”, their relationship is derailed with the appearance of the puppet cabaret singer with the unambiguous name Lucy the Slut (also Jacqueline Martin).  By the end of Act 1, Princeton and Kate have heeded too much the advice of the two Bad Idea Bears (Phil Skala and Shannon Dickens).  Brian and Christmas have got married but the relationships between Princeton and Kate and between Rod and Nicky have seriously deteriorated.

There is no weak link in the cast who give energy-filled performances and catch exactly the right tone between innocence and parody that characterizes the whole show.  Graham Scott Fleming has a lovely, strong voice as Princeton which he roughens and nasalizes to distinguish Princeton from Rod.  Jacqueline Martin makes an even greater distinction between her two characters.  For Kate Monster she uses a high, sweet voice and nails “It’s a Fine Fine Line”, the most serious song in the show, but for Lucy she finds a low raunchy voice you wouldn’t think was in her.  Together Fleming and Martin capture all the awkwardness of a first relationship with real feeling and wit.   

Mark Willett is very funny as the hapless Brian, a man inured to failure, while Amelia Hironaka makes the most of her intentionally terrible Japanese accent as Christmas Eve.  The creators have her substitutes R’s for L’s but also L’s for R’s, and she pronounces V’s as V’s which mean her accent is neither Japanese nor Chinese.  You would think Stephen Amon’s throat would hurt after giving Trekkie Monster such a gravelly voice, so it’s a pleasure to hear his own appealing voice as Newbee, the next college graduate who comes to the neighbourhood.  Phil Skala captures all the frustrations of Nicky and all the childish glee of one of the Bad Idea Bears.  Shannon Dickens matches him as the other Bad Idea Bear and uses an impenetrable Scottish accent as Kate’s unpleasant supervisor Mrs. Thistletwat.  Natasha Strilchuk wisely steers clear of any direct imitation of the late Gary Coleman (1968-2010), and instead gives us the impression of what a former child star with attitude would be like who had descended to his present station.

My only issue with the LOT production is that it should be unnecessary to have all the singers miked for performances in such a small space.  At the Shaw Festival when musicals play the 327-seat Court House Theatre or the 328-seat Royal George Theatre, they are unmiked.  The main Theatre at the LOT is only seven rows deep unlike eleven for the Court House or fifteen for the Royal George.  If singers can’t project to the seventh row without a mic, then they really should not be in musicals.  In performance the sound for up to three singers mixed with the live five-piece band is realistic enough, but for any of the large ensembles the sound is too loud for the space and a general electronic rasp destroys much of the quality of the singing.                

     

Director Seanna Kennedy encourages the singers to address parts of certain songs directly to the audience, something that never happened in the touring production Dancap brought to Toronto in 2008.  This is a great idea and makes us feel like we’re the studio audience of this peculiar kiddie-show for adults only.  Yet when the voice of someone only two-feet away comes from the speakers not from the singer, any impression of intimacy is undermined.  Also, Kennedy should forbid any recorded music from being played at intermission.  Since we’ve just finished hearing music sung live and so well, it’s annoying to have one’s memory of it pre-empted by canned music.  

Aside from these grumbles, LOT’s Avenue Q is a highly entertaining show put across with real panache by an enthusiastic, amazingly gifted cast.  This may be the  show’s third revival at LOT, but given the wild reception it received I suspect there will be many more.

              

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Graham Scott Fleming as Princeton and Jacqueline Martin as Kate Monster.  ©2013 Seanna Kennedy.

For tickets, visit http://lowerossingtontheatre.com.