Beyond Q-ute.
More than a Q-uriosity.
The new Q-urator of Vegas Strip Cool, it's ... a bawdy Broadway puppet show!
That's our Q to tell you: No thoroughfare on our famed boulevard deserves to be better-traveled by both tourists and townies than Avenue Q.
For all the controversy the Tony-winner touched off on its westward trek—spurning a national tour for Steve Wynn's offer of a permanent Sin City crib—now that it's here, Avenue Q is a tuneful, tenderhearted, dirty-minded pastiche, laden with laughs and lewdness. And what a crib, to boot: In the specially built Broadway Theater, with its opera-house ambience, plush seats, sparkle-dusted curtains and royal-red motif (plus "Wynn" popcorn buckets), Q is the first Strip show that genuinely feels like a Great White Way experience (honest-to-God Playbills!), most admirably by transferring Q uncut, at two hours plus an intermission, and nearly un-tweaked, save for a Vegas gag or two.
What's it about? Those post-college/pre-house-in-the-'burbs years when youth is still forever, no path is stamped permanent, no purpose ruled out, and what's next is whatever. Years of getting cracker-box apartments, finding lovers, dodging commitment, scrambling for jobs and figuring out the world. Years many of us miss, despite all the personal insecurity and financial instability, because they still promised endless possibility.
With a double ensemble shouldering a two-shows-per-night, five-nights-per-week schedule, this Sesame Street send-up—not recommended for kids and featuring both people and puppet characters, the puppeteers onstage as well—is led by original stars John Tartaglia, a Tony nominee, and puppet designer Rick Lyon.
They tell the tale of (puppet) Princeton (animated by Tartaglia), a wide-eyed college grad who arrives in NYC hoping to forge his future. Moving into Avenue Q, he bonds with his new neighbors: unemployed comedian Brian and his Asian-therapist wife, Christmas Eve (both human); affable slacker Nicky and his roomie Rod, a blue-faced Republican investment banker who just might be gay (both puppets); an Internet addict called Trekkie Monster (think Cookie Monster on Levitra); and sweet kindergarten teaching assistant Kate (puppet), with whom Princeton is smitten.
They all occupy a funky brownstone—well-detailed in a multi-functional set that quickly transforms into a nightclub or the top of the Empire State building—whose superintendent is TV castoff Gary Coleman (strangely enough, NOT a puppet, and not portrayed by Coleman). At the local cabaret, sleazy Lucy the Slut puppet sways and sashays, naughtily coming between Princeton and Kate. Plus, there's a pair of troublemaking bears, a chorus of singing boxes and characters who pop up in building windows, Laugh-In-style.
Yes, there is (brief, energetic, surprisingly explicit) puppet sex. Disregard that they are missing below the waist and it's nearly believable. And there is imaginative use of animation on large monitors that flank the stage.
The clever, catchy, often laugh-out-loud score—including "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English," "It Sucks to Be Me," "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" ( "... like, Mexican busboys should learn goddamn English!"), "If You Were Gay," "I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today," "You Can Be as Loud As the Hell You Want (When You're Making Love)," "Schadenfreude" and the hilarious "The Internet Is For Porn" ("grab your d--- and double click")—swings from properly PC to refreshingly un-PC to flat-out riotous and damn the ideology.
Amazingly, given its schizoid, people-puppet presentation, Avenue Q draws you in without distraction, employing both simple scenes and elaborate fantasy sequences.
We're marginally aware of the exquisite, precision choreography, puppeteers ducking on- and offstage, switching puppets and voices, even assuming both ends of a conversation while other cast members appear only to prop up a furry creature. But we're never taken out of Q because the characters are so likable, their relationships are believable, the puppet masters act in sync with their creations, and the performers' infectious joy rolls off the stage in waves. The enormously appealing Tartaglia (Princeton, Rod) sets that pace, vibrating with the boyish wonder, innocence and goodwill only a Scrooge-y audience could resist.
For teens and early-twentysomethings, Avenue Q is a whimsical look at what's to come in that crucial, confusing bridge between lingering adolescence and looming adulthood. For full-fledged grown-ups, it's a wistful return trip to a time in our lives we only later realized we loved.
Besides, name another show where one puppet is named "Mrs. Thistletwat" and another flips the bird.