Avenue Q Review

Several weeks ago I went to the musical “Avenue Q” with some friends. I had heard it was a musical with puppets, kind of like Sesame Street. These really weren’t big selling points for me. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have even gone and seen it had I not gotten discounted tickets through my university. Anyway, I did go and see it, and I was very pleasantly surprised.

First of all, despite the rough homage paid to Sesame Street, the musical couldn’t have been more adult oriented, unless it had been pornography. Which part of it was, by the way, -(at least of the puppet variety). But it actually addressed some really serious societal issues, and was by far the most modern, youthful musical I’ve ever seen. Parts of it actually blew me away a little bit merely through their sheer unabashed honesty. Parts of it were almost like the message of Barack Obama’s recent speech about race and politics performed by a bunch of bawdy, singing puppets. With songs such as “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, “Schadenfreude”, “The Internet is for Porn”, and “The More You Love Someone, the More You Want to Kill Them”, it was easy to be a bit surprised. However, “Avenue Q” was incredibly funny and entertaining the whole way through.

I won’t bore you with the details of the plot and all the characters, as there are a lot of both. But basically, it’s about young, just-graduated-from-college puppets who move to Avenue Q seeking jobs and cheap rent. The main character is a young guy (puppet) moving in as a wide-eyed recent graduate who learns a lot about life, love, and bills along the course of the musical. The puppets are carried and animated by real people walking around the stage, but surprisingly, they do such a good job giving life to the puppets that you can forget they’re there most of the time. At least in the production I saw in Boston, the voices and choreography were wonderfully done, particularly since there was a remarkable amount of interplay between the characters popping out of windows, running around, and so forth. Some of the puppets were even controlled by two people at once, and several times the person singing/playing the part of a particular puppet was not the person moving it.

All of the characters were funny and well played. Two of the most memorable characters were the Bad Idea Bears, who looked ultra cute and cuddly, like a puppet Anime version of the Snuggle Fabric Softener bear in the old advertisements, but they would happily recommend buying way too much beer before a job interview or providing things like a noose when a character said he was feeling depressed. There were also a few fully human characters that balanced out the puppets, such as a Gary Coleman impersonator playing the landlord.

It may all sound a bit over the top, and it is, but it was a thoroughly entertaining and even insightful look at the personal hang-ups and challenges facing young adults in modern times. Unfortunately, the music isn’t anything particularly daring or ground breaking; the songs are perfectly fine to listen to, but I wouldn’t recommend this musical to someone who really wants to experience well-crafted songs adapted for theater. However, if you live in an area where Avenue Q is or will be playing, I definitely recommend checking it out. The songs are available on iTunes for those who can’t see the play or who would prefer smaller doses of bawdiness.