So, yes, it is risqué and un-PC, with songs like ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist’ & ‘The Internet Is For Porn’ - and the novelty value of Sesame Street type puppets in grown-up scenarios could have worn a bit thin fifteen years after it was first performed - but the triple Tony Award winning musical Avenue Q must have something else that has made it endure for 15 years. And it does.
With music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and with a sharp script by Jeff Whitty (known now as scriptwriter of the Oscar nominated ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’), this ‘funny, dirty little show’, as Marx puts it, ‘…makes fun of blacks, Asians, Jews, frat guys, gays, Indian cab drivers, Scientologists and Republicans. The only people we’ve ever had complaints from were the Republicans.’
College graduate Princeton moves into a shabby New York apartment on downbeat Avenue Q, which is populated by an eclectic, multicultural mix of life’s hopefuls, hopers and dreamers, including Kate (the girl-monster next door), Rod (an in-the-closet-and-in-denial Republican), Trekkie Monster (the ever-randy Internet sex-addict), ‘Lucy The Slut’, (a predatory Miss Piggy-type vamp), and, erm, erstwhile child star, Gary Coleman, fresh from suing his parents for ripping off his fortune.
It’s an interesting psychological experiment to plot just when you start switching your focus from watching the actors’ faces, to moving your view to the hybrid actor-puppets – but by the end, the puppets have you in their grip. Nor do you ever question that muppet-type creatures & monsters live alongside and interact with humans as neighbours.
The characters behave in ultra-human ways, enjoying sex with gusto, getting drunk, married, sacked and worrying about where their lives are heading. It’s a Bildungsroman of sorts, a spiritual journey which stays (just) the right side of sentimental but contains enough heart and earnestness to convey what it means to be human, struggling to survive and to find purpose in life. Depicting extremely adult themes such as racism, gay relationships and internet porn are, to paraphrase another reviewer, easier to get away with if you’re cute & furry.
The traditional brash, euphoric finale of musical theatre is also subverted here, and in its place is a quieter sort of melody, one which promotes stoicism and faith in the future, in an age when we demand more and more from life and want instant gratification. The final song gently promotes the necessity and importance of biding your time and enduring life’s setbacks ‘for now’, trusting that things will improve in time. It’s a bittersweet end to a pitch-perfect musical.
Cressida Carre’s jaunty direction & puppet-maker Paul Jomain’s garishly coloured creations give visual and verbal punch to this unexpectedly poignant story of ordinary folk muddling through with patience, hope and friendship, where there are no guaranteed happy endings and where ‘everyone's a little bit unsatisfied’.
The eleven energetic cast members double or triple-up and their performances are (and I am normally highly suspicious of this word) flawless, with electric standouts from Tom Steedon and Saori Oda. They’re going to need some stamina too, as the play is on a mammoth national tour, ending in London in August.
Given that when the show was first performed, George W Bush was POTUS (the lyrics of the final song swaps his name for Trump’s), this is a play that has simply not dated. And to get a standing ovation in Chester on a Monday night? That takes some doing.
An absolutely watertight production. You have six months left to catch it. And if you can catch it in the beautiful Art Deco Chester Storyhouse – an arts centre, library, cinema & theatre smashed together, with Lemn Sissay’s poetry splashed across the walls twenty feet high – even better.
Reviewer - Tracy Ryan
on - 26/2/19
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