Avenue Q at State Theatre on 1/1/08

By: Jon Behm

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Avenue Q company - Photo by Carol Rosegg

As kids, we learned a lot from Sesame Street.  How to safely cross the street, for instance, or how to count bats in a spooky old castle while laughing maniacally. Unfortunately once we reach adulthood, we must leave Big Bird behind and start learning to solve adult problems on our own. Not so on Avenue Q though. The Tony award winning Broadway musical is a sort of Sesame Street for adults - a show where the puppets take on issues like homosexuality and masturbation, and have adult names like Lucy The Slut. The show’s national tour, directed by Jason Moore, has set up shop at the State Theater for a few weeks and will guarantee to have people laughing for many more. Mixing a not-too-subtle cocktail of sex, race and self-obsessed 20-somethings, Avenue Q is a modern musical for a modern audience. And like Sesame Street, it is almost entirely done with puppets.

Princeton (played by a spot on Robert McClure) is a young puppet who has just graduated from college and moved to Avenue Q in New York City to find his “purpose” in life. Along his trip to self discovery he encounters a diverse cast of characters, from Trekkie Monster (David Benoit) a shaggy internet porn connoisseur, to ex-child star Gary Coleman (a scarily accurate Carla Renata). While the story’s premise is comedic, Princeton actually learns some important lessons in the school of hard knocks along the way.

The story spins along with the help of Avenue Q’s light musical numbers, which sound like they were invented by the anti-Confucius. There is the darkly hilarious “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” stolen by standout performer Jennie Kwan.  Trekkie Monster’s “The Internet is for Porn,” which is a song about…well, I think it’s self explanatory. “My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada,” is sung by closeted homosexual Rod, and is the only song I know of that ends with the line “I can’t wait to eat her pussy again.” The songs were all conceived by Avenue Q creators Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, and remain edgy even 5-plus years after the show’s original inception.

While the show contains characters with names like Miss Thistletwat and the Bad Idea Bears (Cute Care Bear like animals who try to get the characters drunk) it should not just be dismissed as simply a good laugh. The show strikes a chord in its portrayal of youths, freshly out of college, taught in school to follow their hearts while faced with the dreary reality that not everyone finds a purpose. I think that the idea of following your dreams has gained more currency in my own generation than any preceding. While the idea looks great on a poster, it doesn’t necessarily mean that after you graduate you are going to be able to find any more fulfilling work than painting houses in Eagan. Life is a difficult journey and we don’t always get what we want right away. I think that this reality, more than anything, is what Avenue Q is trying to get across. 

I would recommend anyone who doesn’t exactly know what they want to do with their life see this show, whether they 16 or 60. Even if Avenue Q doesn’t really have all the answers, at least come to laugh along with the rest of us poor confused kids in adult bodies.  At least there is camaraderie in knowing your experience is shared.

And if you are one of those people that does have it all figured out already…screw off, nobody wants you around anyway.

See Avenue Q at the State Theatre through January 13^th.

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Location Info: State Theatre
Artist Info: N/A

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