It’s hard to get worked up about the fact that nine of Avenue Q’s major characters aren’t human at all. Piloted by an interlocking set of four puppeteers, the puppet leads and three human actors watch television, surf the Internet, lose their jobs, get naked--puppet nudity only--and agree that it sucks to be them, all set to a Tony-award-winning original score.
Most actors spend their lives trying to catch the spotlight, but the unconcealed Avenue Q puppeteers have perfected the art of blending into the background, every body movement echoing and reinforcing the puppet’s dialogue and movements instead of the other way around. Individual actors voiced multiple puppets--at the same time--and occasionally handed puppets from pilot to pilot, both on-stage and off. This dance is the best choreography you’ll ever ignore. Avenue Q walked away with three well-deserved Tony awards in 2004, but if there were a category for best puppeteering they would have won four.
Equally impressive is the three humans’ ability to interact convincingly with the puppets. When [human] Christmas Eve holds Rod’s [puppet] head in her lap and strokes his hair, you can’t help but briefly wonder if the handsome young puppeteer controlling Rod feels put out about being so thoroughly ignored.
On opening night some of the actors’ crystal-clear diction got lost in the rafters riding on slightly out-of-balance sound, and occasional shadows seemed to linger on the puppet faces a hair longer than intended. But even taken together these minor discrepancies don’t add up to much, and were quickly steamrolled by the audience’s helpless laughter. The real-life drama of boys and girls becoming men and women, plus the occasional monster, makes the richest tapestry possible for admitting and gleefully accepting our own flaws.
A word on Muppets. The program contains a disclaimer distancing Avenue Q from Jim Henson’s Muppets, but it’s hard not to draw similarities between roommates Nikki and Rod, and Bert and Ernie of Muppets fame. Trekkie monster’s mannerisms are unavoidably reminiscent of a famous Muppet with a hankering for baked goods. But the clearest parody of all may be unintentional, and doesn’t have anything to do with Muppets at all. By the end of the show, Nikki morphs into a green-skinned cousin to Kramer from the television show Seinfeld.
If you’re easily offended, go see this show. You’ll get over it by the end of the show--because as much as you might not want to admit it, that really is you up on stage. After all, who doesn’t identify with puppet sex, former child stars and the search for purpose?
Avenue QAnchorage Concert Assocation
Friday, January 21 at 8pm
Atwood Concert Hall
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