‘Avenue Q’ @ Theatre Arlington
—Jan Farrington
Like a great late-summer cocktail, Theatre Arlington’s brash and bubbly Avenue Q is refreshingly light and funny, with a dash of “life has lemons” to give it a bright, acid edge—and a drop of bitters to keep things real.
If my mixed-drink metaphor is working too hard, blame it on the heat.
In case you missed the memo, Avenue Q is a Sesame Street-style look at the slow-starting lives of a bunch of young New Yorkers—recent college grads, bored young lawyers, getting-nowhere standup comedians, underemployed teachers, psychologists, TV child stars…well, just about everyone. Because they haven’t made it, they’ve been pushed out to the cheaper, un-gentrified neighborhoods of an unnamed borough. (In the Tony Award-winning Broadway production—2004’s Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book— the phone number on the “FOR RENT” sign carried a Brooklyn area code.)
If Avenue A (in our fictional onstage universe) is glitzy Manhattan, the streets get grimier as we move through the alphabet to Avenues J, M, and way out to Q. “What can you do?” asks the show’s opening numbers. “It sucks to be you….You live on Avenue Q….” Robert Lopez (later of The Book of Mormon) and former Sesame Street intern Jeff Marx wrote the lively music and lyrics, and Jeff Whitty the very funny, too-true script. (“What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?”—the first song after the introductory opening—gets a big, rueful laugh from all the theater-going liberal arts majors in the audience.) And speaking of songs, there’s real joy in having “live” music, led by Mark Mullino, with Vonda K. Bowling also on keys, Dennis Langevin (guitar), Andrew Goins (bass), and Jay Majernik (drums).
Director Bryan Stevenson keeps pace and energy high, and the cast is excellent, full of strong singing voices and engaging character work. (The “human” actors, black clad, carry their puppet-characters around the stage—and bring them vividly alive. No challenge there, right?)
Bryson Petersen is sweet as the not-street-smart Princeton, a college grad looking for his “purpose” in life…or at least enough money to rent a room. Jessica Humphrey makes a charming Kate Monster, the warm-hearted kindergarten teacher’s aide looking for love. (Humphrey’s is one of the best of the many good voices in the cast.) The apartment buildings on their block house most of the other characters. There’s comedian Brian (Brandon Wilhelm) and his hard-driving immigrant girlfriend Christmas Eve (Lindsay Longacre is a hoot)…roommates and BFFs Nicky (Hayden Lopez, another fine singer) and Rod (Darin Martin), who might be G-A-Y….gravel-voiced Trekkie Monster (a riotous Andrew Nicolas), who’s always “busy” with his computer (“The Internet is For Porn”)…and building “super” Gary Coleman (Jayden Russell, yet another fine voice, is hilariously perky and furious as the has-been child star of Different Strokes, fallen on tough times). Landry Beckley and Lindsay Hayward play the mischievous “Bad Idea Bears” who talk clueless twenty-somethings into making awful life choices.
Brandy Raper steals some of the show as Lucy T(he) Slut, a local nightclub chan-toosie who tries to torch-sing her way into Princeton’s arms (and Raper can torch a song). And Hayward doubles comically as Mrs. Thistletwat, Kate’s stern teacher/boss—so tough she’s only taking off a half-day for her heart transplant.
Director Stevenson also designed the urban set (with additions from scenic artist Bianca Folgar), a painfully un-fancy lineup of two-story apartment buildings—no vintage brownstones on Avenue Q. The puppets (original design by Alastair Sigala Ramirez) are in the charge of puppet captain Alfredo Tamayo—and however the work of learning this skill was distributed, the cast does a great job of making us believe in the reality of these multi-colored, sometimes furry personalities onstage.
What I enjoy most about Avenue Q is the clever, happy way it captures the humor and heart of the generation that grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s—Millennials, give or take a year. Their life trajectories were thrown askew, more than once, by world, national, and economic events. But they developed a kind of fatalistic good cheer as they faced the possibility that the American Dream of life might not be as shiny or certain as it once seemed. They didn’t love that, but found ways to adapt, hustle, multi-task, live with uncertainty…and know that any current situation was “only for now.” They found ways to have fun and find happiness in tougher times—without giving up on the future.
And of course, who in that generation didn’t grow up with Sesame Street ringing in their ears? This show speaks that generation’s language—adult style—and it’s a good-humored, truth-telling, slightly snarky joy for the rest of us, too.
WHEN: August 25-September 10, 2023
WHERE: 305 W. Main Street, Arlington TX
WEB: theatrearlington.org
