BWW Reviews: AVENUE Q Is Sweet, Salty, and Very, Very Funny

I attended Avenue Q at a sold-out Saturday night performance on Pride weekend in Portland, and the house was filled with people who clearly knew the show and were ready to have fun. The couple seated next to me, however, came with a group of friends and seemed confused about what they were going to see. "It's Sesame Street for twentysomethings," I explained. "It's a great comedy." And so it is. But what hit me this time (my third) was how sweet and likable the show is. At the end of Act One, when the various plots hit their snags and the characters are heartbroken, I heard an audible "Awwww" throughout the house.

This is the triumph of Triangle Productions' 2013 take on Avenue Q: They've found the heart underneath the goofiness. And this is by far the best rendition of the show I've seen.

For those few of you who are as yet uninitiated, Avenue Q, like Sesame Street, takes place in a rundown (yet wholesome) section of a mythical New York City, where human characters and puppets interact with each other and learn life lessons together. Young Princeton, fresh from college, is looking for a job and a place to live, and finds the latter in a tenement on Avenue Q. ("I started on Avenue A but it was too expensive.") He meets engaged couple Brian and Christmas Eve, contentious roommates Rod and Nicky, and the lovely Kate Monster. Oh, and the building's superintendent is Gary Coleman. Yes, that Gary Coleman.

The songs are rollicking, beginning with the catchy "It Sucks to Be Me," "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," and "The Internet Is for Porn." The cast delivers them well, playing the humor but managing to make the story believable underheath the jokes, and you find yourself caring about the characters. When Rod and Nicky fight about Rod's refusal to come out of the closet, or Princeton and Kate fall in love but can't seem to make it work, you're not laughing at the cute puppets; you're genuinely concerned for them.

The actors are uniformly excellent, and they handle their puppets as if they were born attached to their arms, and each stays in character; if you look at the actor's face instead of the puppet, you see the same emotion reflected. Matthew Brown makes Princeton sweet and lovable, but with a naughty sense of humor. Elizabeth Fritsch is wonderful as Kate, singing the ballads beautifully and breaking our hearts at the right moments. Jeremy Garfinkel makes Rod prissy but good-hearted and handles two other roles with great dexterity. Katey Bridge plays Lucy The Slut with verve, and juggles several other puppet roles well. And James Sharinghousen, so good in Triangle's production of The Big Bang last year, is amazing as Nicky, trying to gently help his friend come out, while also embodying Trekkie Monster, a recluse (not unlike Oscar the Grouch) who has some of the best lines in the show, and gets to bellow "The Internet Is for Porn."

The cast includes some non-puppet characters as well. Jonathan Quesenberry plays aspiring comedian Brian as a good-hearted slacker, and gets some of the script's corniest lines. Salim Sundiata Sanchez is a scream as Gary Coleman; he makes no attempt to look or sound like the late child actor but has a great time making wisecracks. Sarah Kim, as Christmas Eve, has a glorious singing voice, but seems uncomfortable with the "fresh off the boat" accent required for the character, and seems just too nice for the cantankerous Eve.

All the voices are splendid, and the vocal arrangements are perfect, though the sound system occasionally lets the cast down and muddies the lyrics. (Mr. Sanchez especially seemed to get lost in the mix.) Director Donald Horn keeps the show moving quickly, the actors bouncing around on the basic set and moving from place to place (and from character to character, in some cases) quickly. Dead spots are anathema to comedy, and Avenue Q is built like a classic farce. Mr. Horn and the cast definitely live up to the demands of the script and score. One small criticism: Like Sesame Street, Avenue Q is definitely a New York show; adding a couple of Portland references into the script is only confusing (and doesn't get the expected laughs).

Don't take anyone who's easily offended; the show revels in four-letter words and sexual references, and there is (as it says on the poster) full puppet nudity. The show also makes fun of every stereotype you can think of. But you walk out feeling like you could go out and do anything. Princeton sings a song about wanting to find his purpose...and right now I think my purpose in life is to make sure you see Avenue Q.

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