Call me crabby, but I'd have traded the Steve Wynn puppet with the frighteningly lifelike hair for one question to the Genuine Article. Or a producer. Or a cast member.
But alas, press conferences—such as the one Tuesday welcoming the Avenue Q folks to Wynn Las Vegas—are made for other things.
Unadulterated cheerleading leaps to mind.
At least it was entertaining unadulterated cheerleading. Sin City's Dubya is a sure-shot showman. The hype-lights:
Puppets and their puppeteers arrive in a flourish of Bentleys.
Photog yells, "Where's the whore puppet?"
Cast is elaborately escorted through the hotel's employee-lined hallways, staff smiles eerily cemented in place, woo-hooing! obligingly fervent, approaching that of a ninth-inning rally.
Cast performs original song with Wynn puppet. Lyrics include "Only in Vegas can you see Paris and New York/ Only in Vegas is my name emblazoned on your fork."
Rod, the gay puppet, quips, "Is this the way to the Thunder Down Under dressing room?"
Lucy The Slut puppet purrs, "I'd like to invite the good people of Las Vegas to come out September 8 to see my enormous ... opening. Everyone will be coming."
Cute.
Wynn spoke of how theater adds another dimension to Strip entertainment by stimulating an audience's emotional investment in character-driven stories. He's right.
Then, after telling assembled press that it was our job to be skeptical, it was thrown open not to said skeptics, but to what appeared to be planted reporters tossing puffball queries—a.k.a. feeding straight lines—so puppets could hit punch lines out of the park and conveniently dodge irritating issues. ... What issues? Say, Broadway's backlash against the Avenue Q-Vegas deal, which has the hit skipping a national tour. Such tours bring the Great White Way to other cities and business back to Gotham. Wynn alluded, briefly, to the controversy, but left an impression of merely sour grapes from the Big Apple, sidestepping that their ire is justified, and terminating tours damages the entertainment well from which Wynn so proudly draws.
Also suggested by a "reporter" was a "contemptuous" New York 'tude toward Vegas. True, to an extent (and vice versa, to be fair). However, as an ex-New York reporter, I can say that at least they're willing to face the press at a "press conference" there.
But alas, hype conferences are made for other things.
(Avenue Q begins previews August 27 and opens September 8.)