Avenue Q

The feature of this show is that as it progresses, it is the puppet characters you are compelled to watch and not the principal players. This has the fascinating result that so much more can be made of the ideas explored in the libretto than could be achieved by the human characters themselves – a quite intriguing experience for the audience who really has no alternative other than to suspend belief at times and go along with the plot and presentation. I am sure this was a real challenge for the principals and the puppeteers at rehearsal - particularly as the show dates approached but whatever the tribulations, the performance came across superbly on the stage of Eastwood Theatre.
Set in New York, the characters are all young people searching for a purpose in life and struggling with the transition from adolescence to adulthood but an air of fantasy permeates throughout with real and imagined monsters lurking at every corner. No doubt many of the characters and puppeteers themselves identified with many of these issues.
Jamie McQueen took the role of Princeton, recently graduated B.A. and seeking work. He has neighbours in his rented apartment on Avenue Q – Kate Monster (Anna Cowen), an assistant in a kindergarten; Rod (Kevin Glasgow), a somewhat deviant banker; Nicky (Ewan Pringle), Rod’s room-mate; Brian (Jack McNeilage), an unemployed comedian; Christmas Eve (Katy Carey), Brian’s girlfriend and unemployed therapist; Trekkie Monster (Max Yuill), a surfer of the net; and Gary Coleman (Sophie Aziz), a building superintendent. Other principals were Lucy (Rebecca Baillie), chanteuse and seductress catching Princeton on the rebound; and Bad Ideas Bears 1 and 2 (Rachel Montgomerie and Aimee Mejury), two charmers of a doubtful sort.
Somewhat arbitrarily, some of the human characters are played by puppets while others are played by humans themselves. The reason probably lies in some aspects of the themes explored by the writers some of which are decidedly adult including racism, sexuality and pornography – all delicately handled in the production but progressively so – as one would expect from Harlequin, always seeking to push out the boundaries.   Quite an experience and a thought-provoking evening’s entertainment.

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