AVENUE Q

I love this multiple Tony Award-winning musical! Avenue Q is in a very limited engagement at the Pantages Theatre, so I’m recommending you rush out and see it. I first saw it almost two and a half years ago at the Ahmanson, and ever since, I’ve been hoping for this opportunity to see it again. Don’t miss your opportunity.

It’s just about the perfect show. I gave it a voluntary standing ovation, something I very rarely do. It’s funny, highly entertaining, never boring for even one second, and leaves everyone in an upbeat mood. There’s nothing more one could ask from a musical. Or anything in life, for that matter!

It’s sort-of a grown-up version of Sesame Street. Get it?–Sesame Street, Avenue Q? Duh. (It actually took me awhile the first time I saw it. And I have 147 IQ!  At least I did when I moved out to LA., if you get my drift.) There are all kinds of life lessons for adults, told in clever, hummable songs, with actually easy-to-understand lyrics.

Strangely, as with the recent engagement here of Rock Of Ages, the Playbill for Avenue Q doesn’t include a list of the songs, so we can only guess at the titles. (Or research them.) The tone of the evening is set with the third number, It Sucks To Be Me. (No explanations necessary.)

From then on, most of the songs are about everyday conditions or emotions that we all have, but don’t want to admit, even to ourselves, like the hysterical Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist, and brutally honest Shadenfreude. I swear, I never knew of this concept until I first saw Avenue Q! Now I think of it from time to time. (It’s a German word for “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” I even thought of using it in my Oscars review, when I realized that that’s what I was feeling at the desperate, phony Anne Hathaway bombing as the host. Without Avenue Q, seriously, I could have never defined it for myself.)

I especially like the last song, For Now. That one sums up the philosophy that I try to impart to my friends during hard times, which is “nothing lasts forever, not even your troubles.” (I saw that quote in one of my appointment books a few years ago, and boy, has it come in handy.)

There are seven performers and they’re all excellent. The super-versatile David Colston Corris, Ashley Eileen Bucknam, and Michael Liscio, Jr. are especially outstanding. They’re the ones who worked multiple puppets, while acting, singing, and moving around. Not an easy task. And they’re all really excellent singers, a fact that perhaps gets lost amidst the magic of the puppetry.

Speaking of the puppets, I was really able to concentrate on them, and not on the actors working them, which I hadn’t thought possible before I saw it the first time. Maybe it’s because the voices appeared to be coming from them rather than the actors. I kept wondering how they were achieving that. (It’s obviously mike placement, but I need exact details.)

I don’t even know how to explain enough what these puppeteers accomplished. Every now and then, I’d pay attention to them, rather than the puppets, and just marvel at their talent. They made the puppets be so real for us, while staying out of the way themselves, yet giving the same emotions and faces as their not-human counterparts. And occasionally they’d do it with two puppets at the same time. This is one instance that the word “amazing” really does apply.

My only problem the first time I saw this show, was that I cringed over the character named Gary Coleman, feeling it was rude to him. (He was alive back then.) As soon as he died in real life, I wondered what Avenue Q was going to do about keeping the whole bit in the show. When he (really played by a female) came on stage last night, I cringed again, but this time for just a second because I was relieved that he can’t feel bad about it anymore. And I think they toned-down the parody a bit.

Anyway, please don’t be fooled by the fact that there are puppets–this show is definitely not for children, or even young teens. (As the Broadway LA site states, this is “due to adult situations, like full-puppet nudity.”) And, especially because of puppet sex, and several mentions of porn, as hysterical as those bits are, I’d be embarrassed to see it with anyone under 21. I barely made the cut myself! Now if I can only convince Mr. X that he’s psychologically mature enough to see it, you just may be sitting next to us when you go.

Avenue Q running through March 6, 2011
Pantages Theatre 6233 Hollywood Blvd. 800-982-2787 www.BroadwayLA.org