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Puppets with purpose on Avenue Q

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 11, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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There's something so sweet about those cursing, copulating puppets.

The decidedly adult Avenue Q plays on all the motifs that generations have grown up with on Sesame Street: the slit-mouth puppets, the counting and spelling lessons, the cheery city brownstones. But instead of a PBS staple, Avenue Q sends curse words and wonder at young adulthood's travails out of the mouths, it teaches words like schadenfreude and Anna Louizos' marvelously realis- tic tenements feature peeling paint and garbage bags piled at the curb.

But at the end, what emerges are not the raucously raunchy lyrics of songs such as The Internet Is for Porn or It Sucks to Be Me but the real emotions evoked by the actors and their puppets and the sweet agony of the broken-heart song There's a Fine, Fine Line.

Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty concocted a musical with a soul, and its intimate nature is conveyed well at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The touring production brings new charm to characters who began on Broadway, particularly in the versatility of David Benoit, who brings a particular energy and comic underpinning to such characters as the Ernie-like slob Nicky and the Cookie Monster perversion of Trekkie Monster (he's assisted on those two-person puppets by Lexie Fridell, whose face expresses character even when her voice is silent).

The story's heart is contained in the just-graduated Princeton, played Tuesday by the expressive, gentle Seth Rettberg, whose voice tightens and rises for the closeted gay Wall Streeter Rod (he, like other puppets, literally has a stick where the sun don't shine). Princeton falls for Kate Monster, a fuzzy-faced kindergarten teacher who in Anika Larsen's portrayal is one of the most fully developed female characters in recent musicals. She's not just wide-eyed and optimistic; she's also insecure and, like most recent college graduates, curses when surprised or disappointed.

The puppet actors interact with human characters such as Christmas Eve, a parody of Japanese stereotypes (played by Angela Ai, who soars in her Rodgers and Hammerstein-style ballad), and Gary Coleman, reduced to being an apartment super and always played by a woman - this time Danielle K. Thomas, who bears a surprising resemblance to him. On opening night, the struggling comedian Brian was played by Cole Porter, only to be replaced a few scenes in by Cullen R. Titmas, too skinny and mild for the role and fighting the audience's disorientation from the switch.

Part of the absorption of Avenue Q comes in watching actors performing alongside the puppets they man. There's no attempt to hide the human, and it's fascinating as the audience absorbs the duality of the characters, eyes trailing from actor to puppet and back. Even more impressive are scenes in which actors voice two puppets, seamlessly moving back and forth under Jason Moore's direction.

The result is a story that absorbs and songs that are actually hummable. It's hard to stand up at the end of Av- enue Q without a smile on your face.

Lisa Bornstein is the theater critic. bornsteinl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5101

Avenue Q

* Grade: A-

* When and where: Opens Tuesday; 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays, through Sept. 21, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Center

* Cost: $25 to $95

* Information: 303-893-4100

Comments

  • September 11, 2008

    8:06 p.m.

    Suggest removal

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