Avenue Q

Musical (2002)
Music and Lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx
Book by Jeff Whitty

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston

Directed by Spiro Veloudos
Music Direction by Catherine Stornetta

May 11 – June 24, 2012

With John Ambrosino (Princeton/Rod), Elise Arsenault (Mrs. T/Girl Bear), Harry McEnerny (Brian), Davron S. Monroe (Gary Coleman), Jenna Lea Scott (Christmas Eve), Erica Spyres (Kate Monster/Lucy), Phil Tayler (Nicky/Trekkie Monster/Boy Bear)

What if one were to take a child-oriented TV show with puppets and morph it into a show about twenty-somethings? In other words, what would happen were one to bend Sesame Street, replete with its muppets, into something about sex, drugs, urban living and the search for one’s purpose in life?

The result of that, here, is a boisterous, witty and entertaining variant on the kid-show motif that, because of its raunchiness and unwillingness to pull punches, comes into hilarious relief against the innocent model on which it is based.

Sesame Street, of course, is a forty-something year old kid show now and it makes perfect sense that the intermediate generation that first cut its teeth on it should look to provide a reassuring equivalent for the challenges of early adulthood.

Several interlocking stories provide the light, but effective, dramas that support the narrative framework.

Princeton (John Ambrosino) moves into the neighborhood, searching for his life’s purpose. He meets and falls in with Kate Monster (Erica Spyres), a teacher with ambitions to start her own innovative school. She falls for him, but is unsure of her own capacity for being loved. And there is the other woman, Lucy (Erica Spyres), Kate’s opposite, who threatens to draw Princeton away from her.

Rod (John Ambrosino) and Nicky (Phil Tayler) are a Bert and Ernie pair who live together. Rod is gay and longs after Nicky who is not. Ultimately, the dissonance in their expectations leads to a break, forcing Nicky out into the street. The paradigm of devoted friendship grates against the edgy difference of sexual orientation.

Christmas Eve (Jenna Lea Scott) and Brian (Harry McEnerny V) are a real couple, but she badgers him mercilessly to get work, forcing us to wonder whether they will survive together on Avenue Q.

All of this provides gentle drama, but with enough realistic fuel to drive the entertainment engine.

Songs with titles like Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, The Internet is for Porn, The More You Ruv Someone (which plays off Christmas Eve’s East Asian accent) and Schadenfreude pepper the show with just enough bad taste to earn hilarity without actually being offensive.

The singing and dancing are carried off beautifully with great ensemble effect, which makes everyone shine.

I had seen John Ambrosino (Princeton/Rod) last fall in the New Repertory Theatre production of Rent, and it is a pleasure to see him again here.

The puppeteering and the juggling of puppet handling and voicing is done most effectively. Sometimes the handlers do the voicing, other times not, but it all works very well.

It is hard to know how the director (and artistic director of the Lyric), Spiro Veloudos, does it. He seems to have the capacity to produce and direct a very wide range of theatrical offerings, from high drama to frivolously fun musicals, with great aplomb and artistic success.

This show, like last year’s Animal Crackers, is a romp, but so well done that it is very satisfying. The completely different, intensely dramatic, Superior Donuts, performed earlier this year, held grandeur at the other end of the dramatic scale. Both types of offerings have been expertly conveyed, and one is only left to marvel at Veloudos’ incredible directorial versatility and the enduring capacity of the Lyric to produce throughgoing successes in all idioms.

– BADMan