By Tom Wachunas
Remember Bert,
Ernie, and Cookie Monster? Imagine each one married, raising children who were
happy, hopeful, and secure in their beloved Sesame Street neighborhood. Then
imagine the frustrations of those children as 20-somethings on their own and
who, encountering a world terribly different from the one they envisioned as
kids, find themselves destitute and lonely on a far-flung, shabby street in New
York City. What’s this ‘lost generation’
to do? To paraphrase a song from Avenue
Q, the Broadway musical that premiered in 2003 (music and lyrics by Robert
Lopez and Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty), it sucks to be them.
Most of the characters are Muppet-styled rod
puppets, with their human operators always clearly visible with them on stage.
For this production by Canton’s Players Guild Theatre, Steve Parsons not only
conducts the sparkling six-piece, off-stage orchestra, but also directed the
amazingly gifted cast in a comical romp that starts in frolicsome overdrive
(choreography by Michael Lawrence Akers) and rarely slows down. The intimacy of
the Guild’s arena theater allows the audience to admire at close range the cast
members’ delightful abilities to let their puppets be their syncopated,
empathetic partners in expressivity.
So who are these partners? The affable Princeton
(Matthew Heppe) is a recent college graduate ardently seeking his purpose in
life, and conflicted about his budding relationship with Kate Monster (Abigail
Riley), equally conflicted as she dreams of founding “Monstersori” – a special
school for monsters only. The chemistry between Heppe and Riley is quite
marvelous – a piquant blend of vulnerability and youthful hope.
Additionally
there’s Rod (Vincent Sisely), a tightly-wound banker and closeted gay, constantly
at odds with his straight, lazy roommate, Nicky (Stephen Berg). The hermitic,
strangely endearing, and porno-addicted Trekkie Monster (Adam Cerrezuela) lives
upstairs. Lucy the Slut (Sarah Marie Young) is a sultry and intrusive temptress
in the style of Mae West at her most lascivious. Then there are the relentless
Bad Idea Bears (Craig Joseph and Alexis Long), mischievous critters who live up
to their name by implanting pernicious impulses in their vulnerable victims.
Joseph’s frenetic facial and vocal contortions constitute a gut-splitting
performance unto itself.
Three actually
human characters round out the Avenue Q tenants: Brian (Brian O. Jackson), an
unemployed would-be comedian; his Japanese fiancée, Christmas Eve (Mary
Sheridan), a therapist looking for clients; and the apartment building
superintendent, ex-child star Gary Coleman (Tiffeny Brown).
Among the witty
and/or wickedly cynical tunes (such as Everyone’s
A Little Bit Racist, and The Internet
is for Porn) that pepper this
gluttonously funny feast of a show, none seems more illustrative of its overall
aesthetic than There’s a Fine, Fine Line. Riley’s Kate Monster
leads one of the evening’s more poignant
and anxiety-filled scenes at the end of Act I when she sings, with her
astonishingly sweet and crystalline tonality, “There's a fine, fine line
between a lover and a friend; There's a fine, fine line between reality and
pretend…” Later in Act II, Mary
Sheridan’s Christmas Eve, responding to Kate Monster’s frustration with
Princeton’s fear of commitment, provides a hilarious quasi-counterpoint when
she strides about the stage like a sarcastic opera diva, intoning The More You Ruv Someone (the more you
want to kill them).
That said, while fine
lines can require careful walking, this show crosses several with cavalier if
not disturbing ease - lines between compelling satire and insipid parody, between
the venerable and the vulgar. Speaking of the latter, satire or not, and despite
the paroxysms of laughter elicited from the house, did we really need to see
the ribald enactment of Kate and Princeton’s one-night stand? Fornicating
puppets…seriously?
After a while, the
“off-color” humor gets to be just that. Call it a raucous monotone, which tends
to overshadow any truly dramatic authenticity in those coming-of-age moments
late in the show when these angst-riddled neighbors manage to find sustainable
resolutions to their respective situations. Sure, there are a few references to
Jesus and selfless service to others, but they come off a little bit like
disingenuous afterthoughts amid so much existential insouciance. Like whistling
in the dark. But I think the fault, should you perceive it as such, lies in the
writing, not the performing.
In the end, I
ended up caring about these characters if only because, 13 years after their
inception, they still reflect the flaws and wounds of a culture navigating life
without a steady moral compass. Belly laughs aside, I want that culture to
experience not just the cautionary jubilance voiced in the show’s closing
number, Only For Now, but more
importantly, an unequivocal surrender to a Divinely appointed forever.
Avenue Q, at the Players Guild Theatre (in
the W.G. Fry Theatre) runs through
Sunday March 13, 2016 / Friday and Saturday performances at 8:00pm, Sunday matinees
at 2:00 PM. Tickets: $26.00 for adults, and $23.00 for seniors. Tickets may be purchased online 24 hours a
day at www.playersguildtheatre.com
or in person at the Players Guild Box
Office, located in the Great Court of the Cultural Center for the Arts, 1001
Market Ave N. By phone:
330-453-7617. Please note, due to adult content this production
is intended for mature audiences only.
PHOTOS (rehearsal shots), courtesy Michael
Lawrence Akers/ Players Guild Theatre - (from top): #1.
The cast of the Players Guild Theatre's "Avenue Q" is (front, left to
right) Tiffeny Brown, Craig Joseph, Alexis Long, Brian Jackson and Mary
Sheridan, and (back) Adam Cerrezulea, Sarah Marie Young, Matthew Heppe, Abigail
Riley, Stephen Berg and Vince Sisley. / #2.
(l. to r.) Matthew Heppe, Abigail Riley, Sarah Marie Young / #3. (l. to r.) Vincent Sisely, Alexis Long, Stephen Berg
No comments:
Post a Comment