Avenue Q
At the Arts Club Granville Island Stage until Aug. 3
Tickets: 604-687-1644
artsclub.com
With Marshal McMahens cartoony set of off-kilter, shambled tenement buildings and tipped-over trash can, Avenue Q looks a lot like Sesame Street. And music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx sound a lot like Sesame Street at first, but titles like It Sucks To Be Me, Im Not Wearing Underwear Today and Everyones A Little Bit Racist soon let you know youre not in Jim Henson-land. Puppets Rod and Nicky behave like Bert and Ernie, and Trekkie Monster is a riff on Cookie Monster. But Trekkies passion is not for cookies but for Internet porn. With an extended scene featuring puppets Kate and Princeton having it off every which way, Avenue Q could be subtitled The Kama Sutra for Puppets. Dont even think of taking the kiddies.
Not really my cup of tea but this is a terrific production under the capable direction of Peter Jorgensen. All the voices are exceptional. Evangelia Kambites, as Gary Coleman, knocks it out of the park with Schadenfreude. And if a puppet can make you take her seriously, Kate (Kayla Dunbar) might with Theres a Fine, Fine Line. The onstage, four-piece band, under the direction of Sean Bayntun, is lively and robust.
As in Sesame Street, theres a mix of humans and puppets; in addition to Kambites as Coleman, Andy Toth is Brian and Shannon Chan-Kent is Christmas Eve. The puppeteers, including Scott Bellis, Jeny Cassady, Kayla Dunbar and Andrew MacDonald-Smith, work wonders with the way they handle the mix of single-rod, double-rod and live-hands puppets.
Theres no attempt to hide the puppet handlers and, in fact, the body language of the puppeteer is critical to the development of each puppets character. Dunbar, for example, is all sassy and raunchy and lewd when shes working Lucy, the slut. But her movements are shy and awkward when shes handling Kate.
A little-known feature of this 2004 Tony Award Triple Crown winner (Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score) is that the puppets are made by original Broadway cast member Rick Lyon and the puppets go with the rights to the show. Avenue Q is rehearsed with rehearsal puppets and, once the show is up and running, the real deal puppets are used. Puppeteers wear gloves to extend the life of the puppets and each, according to Wikipedia, is worth $10,000. There are waivers and insurance policies involved. From Wikipedia: Lyons company, Lyon Puppets, continues to build and maintain the puppets used in all North American productions, and several of the international productions, including those from England, Australia, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, while supervising the construction of those from the Finnish and Swedish productions. Their unusually sturdy construction, with double-stitching, reinforced seams, steel boning, and custom fake fur and feathers, is necessitated by the rigors of an eight-shows-per-week performance schedule.
But its not just the puppets that must be unusually sturdy. This is a workout for arms, legs and especially vocal chords. Scott Bellis, for example, voices deep, growly Trekkie Monster as well as high-voiced Bad Idea Bear and Nicky, whose voice is more or less normal. But while Bellis is voicing these characters, hes also executing director Jorgensens choreography and bursting into song. Usually performing on the Bard stage at this time of year, Bellis appears to be having the time of his life singing, dancing and playing with puppets. Stellar as indecisive, hounded King John last year at Bard, hes porn-loving Trekkie this year on the Arts Club Granville stage. What a life.
What a show. The guy beside me almost fell out of his seat laughing. Not my favourite kind of theatre but I know a good production when I see one.
For more reviews go to joledingham.ca.
