Review: Avenue Q

Review: Avenue Q  | Town Hall Arts Center | Littleton, CO | Curtain Up! | Gina Robertson

The Tony award winning Broadway musical puppet show Avenue Q is still as much fun as it was 22 years ago when it shocked the theater world by beating Wicked for the 2004 Best New Musical award. Nominated for six Tony Awards that year, it won three, and it’s easy to see why it’s been such an enduring production over the decades, even though many of its elements are dated.

For example, the “mix tape” that Princeton makes for Kate, which she interprets as a sign of his interest in her, today would be a Spotify playlist, and do people still do that as a way of flirting? Another is Kate’s excitement over showing the internet to her kindergarten students. Today those five-year-olds will have been online since they could hold an iPad, and it’s doubtful that any teacher will have something new to teach them about the worldwide web.

When a story contains elements that exist only in the specific time period of the story, it’s known as a period piece. Oh my gosh,Avenue Q has become a period piece!

Glancing through the program, it comes to mind that the number of people who recognize the name “Gary Coleman” and who will get the jokes around his character has probably dwindled down to just a few. Still, audiences will love Gary (Asya Toney) and the rest of the production at Town Halls Arts Center in Littleton.

Asya Toney; Photo credit: RDG Photography

The appeal of this show is its faux naivety, a pretended innocence that makes the adult action and language still a bit shocking after more than two decades. The silly puppets can address difficult concepts like racism, masturbation and closeted homosexuality in a more direct way than a standard show with human actors could.

The cast is large and shifts around, with the actors performing multiple puppet characters, or even sometimes performing the voice of one puppet while operating the body of another. Tim Howard and Cass Dunn carry the show with support from comedic talents like Brandon Guzman, Fiona Wohlfarth, Kim Egan, and Patrick J. Clarke.

Fiona Wohlfarth, Patrick J. Clarke and Tim Howard; Photo credit: RDG Photography

Many of the puppets require two people to operate them together, a feat of coordination akin to dancing and one to be admired. Under the direction of Matthew R. Kepler, the puppets never get in the way. Stage movements are smooth, puppet wrangling looks seamless, and the puppet acting is delightful. They make it look easy, but acting with your face and your voice is one thing, adding a third form of expression must be a real trick.

It is, as Kepler put it, a unique challenge, “finding nuance, precision, and truth while also making sure the puppet doesn’t stare off into space at a crucial emotional moment.”

Some of the characters are humans, some are puppet humans, and some are puppet monsters (“people of fur”). The story is about the simple challenges of daily life and finding the deeper meaning or purpose in life. Princeton (Tim Howard) is a fresh college graduate strolling along a New York sidewalk looking for a cheap place to rent, which he finds on Avenue Q along with a cast of new friends and lovers. 1970s child star Gary Coleman (Toney) is the superintendent of the apartments on this street, and the neighbors include Brian (Brandon Jesus Lopez), his fiancée Christmas Eve (Kim Egan), roommates Nicky (Patrick J. Clarke) and Rod (Tim Howard), Kate Monster (Cass Dunn), and Trekkie Monster (Brandon Guzman).

Cass Dunn; Photo Credit: RDG Photography

Dunn’s sweet voice in Kate’s breakup song “It’s a Fine, Fine Line” will break your heart. As Princeton and Rod, Howard seems to pop up all over the stage at different places with a brilliant ability to bring a puppet to life.

Toney’s Gary Coleman cracks jokes and grins, with Coleman’s signature sit-com line “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” Toney is especially good with comic timing and the ironic song “Shaudenfraude.”

There is terrific chemistry between Rod (Howard) and Nicky (Clarke). Rod is in the awkward position of being a closeted gay Republican who fantasizes about his roommate. Nicky is a good friend who cares so much about his buddy that he sets out to find someone like himself for Rod to love. This is the way in which this show takes comic situations and injects real-life elements of humanity and heart.

Egan stands out during Christmas Eve’s song “The More You Ruv Someone,” drawing both the biggest laugh and the warmest sentiment at the same time. Her comedic Japanese accent is not over-done, and her voice is smooth and soulful.

Kim Egan and Brandon Jesus Lopez; Photo credit: RDG Photography

My favorite characters are the bad idea bears, operated by Guzman and Clark. They are a couple of cute little teddy bears with an enormous appetite for trouble. They’re the aggressive voices in your head telling you to buy beer with the money your parents sent you for rent, or to stay up all night drinking Long Island teas with that cute guy at the bar and then go home with him when you know you have to get up early for an important project in the morning at work. The bad idea bears are the intrusive thoughts that prevent you from making good choices. They are aggressive and dramatic in their persuasion, and these two are hilarious when they appear on stage.

Patrick J. Clarke and Brandon Guzman; Photo Credit: RDG Photography

There are some clever Sesame Street style word jokes that occur on stage or on the projection screen. For instance, when Princeton spends the night with Lucy the Slut, the screen appears to be counting nightstands: “One nightstand!”  but quickly switches the cadence to reveal: “One night stand!”  which has a completely different meaning.

Brandon Guzman; Photo Credit: RDG Photography

Music director Zach Stailey and a small ensemble of musicians sit behind a screen and provide accompaniment to songs and action. Costume designer Jessie Page shows off with big moments like Christmas Eve’s wedding dress reveal, and puppets by Cory Gilstrap are large, designed to be seen from the back row. They’re uncomplicated but vivid enough to realistically represent the characters. Kate is pretty, Lucy is slutty, and Trekkie is loveable yet depraved. Gilstrap’s company is called Imagined Creations, with decades of engineering expertise in creating sets, props, costumes and puppets for Colorado theater.

In the lobby before the show, audiences are asked to write down their purpose on a slip of paper and carry it into the theater. I expected that something might be done with these, some sort of interactive bit of stage business involving these slips of paper bearing all of our purposes declared in writing like a commitment. Unfortunately, nothing came of it, and my purpose just kept falling out of my program and had to be retrieved from the floor a few times.

Avenue Q is more than just Sesame Street with curse words and sex, it’s genuinely sweet and filled with memorable characters with relatable problems. I can tell just by lookin’ that you’ll be especially turned on by this show. Catch it, but only for now, through June 7 at Littleton’s Town Hall Arts Center.

For information and tickets: https://townhallartscenter.org/event/avenue-q/