Jenny Washburn
A group of people and puppets pose for a photo.
The cast of "Avenue Q," Middleton Players Theatre, 2023.
The iconic PBS program Sesame Street got a lot of us Gen-Xers (and all the people who came after us) off to a good start. Thanks to the groundbreaking show and the magic of Jim Henson’s muppets, we made friends with monsters, practiced our numbers and letters in both English and Spanish, and learned fundamental concepts like sharing, dealing with emotions, and understanding people who were different from us. Even before we started preschool or kindergarten, we cared for Cookie Monster, Kermit the Frog, the Count, Big Bird and the odd couple roommates, Ernie and Bert.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a TV program featuring singing, dancing, puppets and animation that prepared recent college grads for adulthood, the same way Sesame Street got us ready for kindergarten? That is the premise of Avenue Q, onstage currently in the black box theater at Middleton High School, produced by Middleton Players Theatre, through August 13.
Life lessons about money, relationships, good and not-so-good decision making, and finding a purpose in life are presented via skit and song, using characters who live a few blocks down from Sesame Street, in a rough-around-the-edges neighborhood in New York City. But don’t look for Luis, Bob, Maria or Mr. Hooper. These vignettes are presented by some not-quite-together humans, some familiar looking puppet characters and Gary Coleman, the TV icon from our youth who also had trouble growing up, played by a solid Winter White.
At the top of the show, a 20-something named Princeton (a troubled puppet voiced and manipulated by Zak Wolff) bursts on the scene in a graduation gown with the perfectly reasonable question, “What do you do with a B.A. in English?” The answer (I’ve been told) is not much.
Our protagonist lands in a run-down apartment on Avenue Q and fumbles his way through lousy jobs, dwindling funds, and a lot of trial and error in relationships and simply “adulting.” Princeton’s love interest is Kate Monster (brought to delightful life by Isabel Celata), an idealistic and often wistfully romantic puppet who helps teach preschool and dreams of human/monster peace and equality. Together they navigate young love, lust, heartbreak and reconciliation.
If you’re thinking this sounds funny, it is. If this sounds family-friendly, it’s decidedly not.
Have the kids stay home and watch a Disney movie while the adults take in this show, which includes puppet nudity, puppet inebriation, puppet sex, puppet raunchiness, and a good helping of four-letter words. Avenue Q also addresses some “mature” contemporary issues that Cookie Monster never dreamed of, like admitting in song that “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” “The Internet is for Porn,” and sometimes, the more you love someone, the more they drive you crazy. Where Sesame Street taught us about happiness and sadness, Avenue Q teaches us about schadenfreude.
Avenue Q also addresses the long-whispered rumors about Ernie and Bert in the form of almost lookalike roommates Nicky (animated by a menschy Noah Strube) and Rod (puppeteered with gusto by Steve Wright). Rod is an uptight, closeted gay puppet with romantic feelings towards his friend, while Nicky is an easy-going puppet who struggles to tell Rod that he’s supportive, but not attracted. The lengths the pair goes to avoiding the subject is hilarious, but the pain of their separation is also heartbreaking.
Both of the puppet couples are outstanding and their storylines drive the show forwards. Behind those furry faces, each of the leads has a terrific singing voice and their mastery of the puppets is truly impressive. As tempting as it is to watch the person making the puppet sing, dance, act, gesticulate, and interact with other puppets and humans — including some that require more than two hands to operate — it was hard not to focus on the puppets themselves, which begin to take on a life of their own. After a relatively short rehearsal period, the cast performs this extra level of theater magic incredibly well.
Other impressive puppet characters include Maddy Sylvester’s Lucy the Slut (told you it wasn’t a kids show), a sultry lounge singer who inserts herself into Princeton’s life momentarily, and the porn-surfing Trekkie Monster, with a fantastic muppet voice and comic timing from Joshua Schiffman.
Director/music director Thomas J. Kasdorf keeps the show moving at a good pace, mostly playing to the center section of the audience, with less attention paid to the sides, and Sara Bartlett’s choreography is serviceable. With animated interludes playing on side screens, the show is very well suited to the space and on opening night the production’s many technical elements were executed like clockwork.
As funny and fun as Avenue Q is (and it is!), the 20-year-old show occasionally feels dated. A thick Asian accent written into the character of Christmas Eve, for instance, seems awkward and largely unnecessary. And Rod’s histrionics at being outed in front of the neighborhood belong to a different era. Just as another shock musical comedy, The Book of Mormon, has updated its references and toned down some stereotypes, one hopes that Avenue Q’s creators, Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty, will give their material a once-over soon so there’s more laughter and less cringing. But even as this play is currently written, this cast imbues their puppets with terrific voices, a lot of comedy and a lot of heart.
