Sesame Seedy
Traveling Broadway show offers an amusing, adult take on kids' puppet TV
by Martin Brady
Racism, homophobia, porn—sounds like a fun-filled night at the theater, huh? But filtering these hot-button issues through a cast peppered with puppets can at least provide a comic lens. That's the formula for Avenue Q, an irreverent yet vastly entertaining musical journey through a fictional big-city neighborhood where characters strive to find their purpose in life. After opening on Broadway in 2003 and winning three Tony Awards, the show has become an international phenomenon. It continues to run in New York, and the American touring company, which has been out and about since 2007, finally makes its way to Music City for a weeklong engagement.
Avenue Q comes with a disclaimer: "Avenue Q does employ puppets, but due to adult content, it is not suitable for children. Avenue Q has not been authorized or approved by the Jim Henson Company or Sesame Workshop, which have no responsibility for its content."
Actually, the late, great Henson, who mentored Avenue Q puppet designer Rick Lyon, would probably admire his protégé's deft use of single- and double-rod and free-hand puppets. But the Sesame Street connection is a little trickier. Avenue Q pays homage of a kind, and there's no mistaking the familiar, kid-friendly whimsy of the opening "Avenue Q Theme." Yet the ensuing search for identity in a confusing modern world also includes a multitude of clever songs that confront very adult issues. "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?" will resonate with many. Ditto "It Sucks to Be Me," which wallows delightfully in the cult of low self-esteem. "If You Were Gay" and "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," raise the self-reflective ante even more, and their peppy tunefulness heightens the irony factor.
"It was always in our minds to juxtapose the success of children's TV and its messages about life—to take that style and apply it to ambivalence," says Jeff Whitty, author of the Avenue Q book. "Yet when we were writing the script, we didn't intend for the parody to be strictly tied to Sesame Street. It's been working well on any level."
Nevertheless, Avenue Q's most notorious number, "The Internet Is for Porn," is bellowed by an oversized hybrid of Cookie Monster and Grover, two of Sesame Street's more enduring figures. The link to such iconic children's programming will certainly register with adult audiences, and that just makes the laughter louder.
"No, the show doesn't provide protection from the cruel realities of the world," Whitty says. "That was a given, aesthetically. Yes, some people are offended by Avenue Q. But we wanted to create something more pointed and adult, not merely puppets who swear."
Nashville audiences can also expect an appearance by Diff'rent Strokes' Gary Coleman. (Calm down: He's portrayed by an actor.)
"That was an accident," says Whitty. "The original TV pilot idea for Avenue Q included celebrity guests—just like Sesame Street uses 'visitors' to their neighborhood set. So the idea of Gary stayed with the stage show—you know, the living person whose best days are behind them? It's the fulfillment of everyone's worst fears: from childhood to downhill."
Happily, both Avenue Q's puppets and human characters learn to embrace the ups and downs of dealing with careers, relationships and their place in society. Heck, even the porn emerges as a kind of hero. And yes, there is puppet sex, albeit comically rendered—and in this regard Avenue Q actually had the jump on Trey Parker and Matt Stone's marionette satire Team America.
Abra cadaver
The literary side of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein sparks a lot more in the imagination than do the all-too-familiar celluloid Hollywood images that we associate with her famous novel. It's just not as simple as "madman doctor (Colin Clive) creates rampaging beast (Boris Karloff)," and the new Nashville Children's Theatre production—of Nick DiMartino's constrained adaptation—gives us a bit more welcome insight into Shelley's plot points and themes.
Not to say that we don't get a beast—it's actor Elijah Dies, in a costume designed by Patricia Taber and based on Shelley's original description. Dies looks appropriately ghoulish, as any cadaver brought to life by electrodes and lightning bolts might. He also enacts the role with a pathetic, stumbling quality that manages to evoke sympathy. Like Robin Williams' therapist in Good Will Hunting, you might find yourself recalling the mantra, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault," as Dies' monster lurches out of control and destroys his creator's loved ones.
Which gets us back to the more human side of things, involving young Victor Frankenstein (Eric D. Pasto-Crosby), whose mother's death is the catalyst for his desire to create life. Off to Vienna he goes, only to shock his professor, Dr. Waldman (Pete Vann), with his claim that the nature of life cannot be fully understood until it can be created by man. The earnest Victor finds a like-minded friend in Peter Krempe (Ross Brooks), who returns with him to Geneva, where untoward and blasphemous experiments commence and a man-beast is born.
Light and sound designers Scott Leathers and Dan Brewer combine their talents to give us the de rigueur thunder and lightning of the gothic horror milieu, and the set—contributed by H. O. Plodder, Mike Sanders and Erica Edmondson—is functional and eerie, taking us through the dark Frankenstein mansion and later into the doctor's laboratory.
The cast, under the direction of Scot Copeland, is uniformly good, led by Pasto-Crosby, who's both suavely on edge and sufficiently megalomaniacal. Besides Dies and Brooks, solid work is turned in by Vann (who pulls double duty as Frankenstein's brother), and Henry Haggard, also in dual roles, as the crusty family patriarch and as Fritz, the foreboding grave-robber. Jamie Farmer is the vulnerable, anxiety-ridden fiancée, Kamal Bolden is the family friend Clerval who meets a dire end, and Rona Carter is both the Frankenstein housekeeper and a landlady.
Frankenstein is recommended for ages 10 and up, but it's more of a haunting experience than a bloodthirsty one. Yet there is murder and an element of brutality, so the youngest children should enter at their parents' discretion. Otherwise, it's perfect fare with Halloween on the way.
Frankenstein runs through Nov. 1 at Nashville Children's Theatre's Hill Theatre.
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