Review

Reviewed Work(s): Avenue Q. by Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty
Review by: Tom Smith
Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 56, No. 2 (May, 2004), pp. 313-314
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25069439
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out of the fairy world. As the play progresses, the
ensemble moves pieces around the space as the
story requires. Within the simple set, the story
seems immediate and rough, as if it is being pulled
together for an urgent telling in front of our eyes.
The briar bush is made of two-by-fours and thus
has the rough-hewn feeling of the castle flats. This
effect is belied, however, by the majesty of their
descent on the stage from above.
However, Landau can make the simple breath
taking. She sculpts bodies and stage pictures to tell
stories visually. When the first Prince Charming
(Adam Smith) woos Rose, Landau shapes the ges
ture?his leg forward and his hat extended?to
evoke the courtly prince of fairy tales. She then
places him behind a thin red curtain, revealing
only his silhouette; with his individuality stripped,
this prince is now iconic. The prince punctuates his
panegyric with a fastidious adjustment to his tights
and suddenly we know that this is not the right
prince. Landau stages the sewing of the Queen's
(Amy Stewart's) mouth with two pieces of string
going from slack to taut and the image is spectacu
larly gruesome. When Rose first appears, her white
silk blankets are unwrapped around her as if she is
simultaneously set free and reminded of her con
tainment. There are places, however, where
Landau's reliance upon Viewpoints (Mary Overlie's
method of performance composition and training
later adopted and altered by Anne Bogart) is self
conscious and pretentious. Emphatically, the en
semble repeats a series of movements and hand
gestures that seem to be part of the lexicon of the
story yet are never decoded.
The meaning of Beauty is decoded. At the end,
the crone says: "You see, it is we, not Beauty, who
lie asleep. If we would waken to her, we must first
awaken to the beauty around and in us. Awaken.
That is the moral of the story. And once upon a
time it was okay for stories to have a moral when
the evening was through." While it may be okay
for a story to have a moral, it is still preferable to
have it dramatized and not directly told. Conse
quently, the hallmark of Beauty becomes its Hall
mark ideology. Even before the troubled philoso
phy student must abandon his books, the concepts
of love and beauty become the needs of the world.
Landau has a beautiful take on Sleeping Beauty.
However, her work as a playwright would benefit
from her trusting her work as director to convey
the beauty in the story.
AMY E. COOK
University of California, San Diego
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PERFORMANCE REVIEW / 313
AVENUE Q. Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez
and Jeff Marx. Book by Jeff Whitty. Golden
Theatre, New York City. 18 September 2003.
Everyone's a little bit racist. There's a fine line
between love and a waste of time. You can be as
loud as the hell you want when you're makin' love.
These are just a few of the lessons you are likely
to learn from watching Avenue Q. Embracing the
style of Sesame Street but with a decidedly adult
bent, Avenue Q follows the lives of Princeton, fresh
out of college with a B.A. in English, and Kate
Monster, a kindergarten teacher's aide looking for
love. They live on Avenue Q, along with Rod, an
uptight closeted investment banker, his straight
but-not-narrow roommate Nicky, Mae West look
alike chanteuse Lucy T. Slut, and Trekkie Monster,
who is addicted to Internet porn. The fact that
these characters are played by puppets seems of no
concern to human friends Christmas Eve, a Japa
nese therapist who cannot seem to get any clients,
her caterer husband Brian, who dreams of making
it as a comedian on late night TV, and the superin
tendent of Kate's building, Gary Coleman. Yes,
that Gary Coleman (although here played by ac
tress Natalie Venetia Belcon).
If the inclusion of puppets was merely a novelty,
Avenue Q would prove to be less Broadway-worthy
than it really is. Instead, the creators have thought
fully developed a world in which diversity of all
kinds is a fact of life: even between puppets and
humans. When Princeton asks Kate Monster, who
appears fairly human, if she is related to Trekkie
Monster, who is far less so, Kate is offended and
confronts Princeton about his racist statement. This
introduces one of the most popular numbers in the
show, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," in which the
cast sings about their own prejudices: "Everyone's
a little bit racist sometimes / Doesn't mean we go
around committing hate crimes / Look around and
you will find / No one's really colorblind / Maybe
it's a fact we all should face / Everyone makes
judgments based on race."
The puppets also represent a kind of duality
within the residents. While humans Gary, Brian,
and Christmas Eve seem content, the characters
portrayed by puppets often wrestle between two
sides of their personalities. Trekkie Monster makes
millions of dollars off investments in pornography,
but then magnanimously donates the money to
open a school for monster children. Innocent and
sweet-natured Kate hides a rambunctious sexual
side. Most tellingly, Rod hides his homosexuality
and his attraction to his roommate Nicky, all the
while singing about his girlfriend who just happens
314 / Performance Review
Kate Monster, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Princeton,
and John Tartaglia in Avenue Q on Broadway.
Photo: Carol Rosegg.
to live in Canada. By animating these characters
with a puppeteer, there is a visual equivalent of
their split nature; but perhaps that is reading too
much into a show whose ultimate message is that
life is a balance of highs and lows (reiterated by
Gary Coleman's presence) and whose closing
thought is "Nothing lasts / Life goes on / Full of
surprises / . . . You're going to have to make a few
sacrifices / For now / But only for now."
Although much has been made (and rightly so)
about the phenomenal leading performances of
Stephanie D'Abruzzo as Kate and Lucy and John
Tartaglia as Princeton and Rod, both of whom give
award-worthy performances, Avenue Q is truly an
ensemble production. Rick Lyon and Jennifer
Barnhart pull quadruple duty as leading and sup
porting characters /puppeteers and seamlessly aid
in the transitions of the dizzying choreography of
puppets entering and exiting. Their skill is phe
nomenal; both show complete mastery of puppetry
while singing and acting with complete conviction.
The fact that Lyon's Nicky sounds like a dead
ringer for Ernie from Sesame Street only adds to the
fun. Ann Harada embraces an Asian character
right out of Rodgers and Hammerstein with good
natured fun and is brilliant in her musical num
bers, especially "The More You Ruv Someone."
Dropping her otherwise high-pitched wail to a
deep contralto earns some of the evening's biggest
laughs as she sings about a long-term relationship,
"The more you love someone / The more you
wishing him dead / Sometime you look at him and
only see fat and lazy / And wanting baseball bat
for hitting him on his head." Belcon's Gary Coleman
brings a sense of burnt-out spunkiness to the pro
duction, and she brings sauciness to "You Can Be
As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You're
Makin' Love)." The only weak link in this produc
tion is both the character of Brian and Jordan
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Gelber's performance of the role. Brian seems to
have little to do in the production. In fact, he comes
off as a character that does not need to sing, dance,
or manipulate puppets, which is not largely inter
esting in a production about those three things.
Gelber's performance cannot overcome the char
acter's shortcomings, and ultimately fades away in
an otherwise superior cast.
The scenic design is clever and whimsical, pay
ing homage to Sesame Street while it deconstructs it
(sometimes literally). It is particularly challenging
to create environments on which human-scale and
puppet-scale characters fit, but designer Anna
Louizos has done a splendid job overcoming this.
There are brilliant details in both the lighting and
sound design, including some short cartoon inter
ludes projected from television screens on either
side of the stage, and the puppets, designed by
Rick Lyon, are fantastic, especially considering the
myriad of emotions they must convey. Plus, creat
ing puppets that are as appealing with their clothes
off (as Princeton and Kate are in one steamy scene)
is a true feat of magic. The enormous puppet that
appears during a dream sequence is worth the
price of admission alone.
Director Jason Moore and his company of cre
ators and actors have fashioned a show that pays
homage to a simpler time as it simultaneously
skews it. There are lessons to be learned on Avenue
Q: lessons about the fleeting nature of contentment
and success, the highs and lows of passion, and the
frustrated struggle to try to find a purpose in life.
The fact that these lessons are presented by pup
pets that sing and dance seems clever rather than
contrived and it is that cleverness that will ensure
Avenue Q a long and healthy run.
TOM SMITH
New Mexico State University
LIVE NUDE BOUFFONS. By The Out of
Hand Theatre. Seven Stages, Atlanta, Geor
gia. 15 May 2003.
QUINNOPOLIS VS. HAMLET. By Quinnop
olis, NY. The Meeting Place at the Church
of St. Veronica, New York City. 1 August
2003.
There are two new young companies worthy of
attention. Atlanta's The Out of Hand Theatre and
New York's Quinnopolis, NY are devising de
tailed, disciplined, and highly physical pieces in
which each moment is crafted with precision. In