Imagine Bob the Builder is swearing about imminent bankruptcy, Postman Pat is confused about his sexual orientation and the Wombles are about to be evicted from Wimbledon Common. It’s the kind of world inhabited by
Avenue Q, a hit Broadway musical about to open in London, in which happy, smiley children’s television is turned upside down by the realities of adult life. It features a group of anxiety-ridden twentysomethings, played by Muppet-like puppets and humans, with a lot to learn about life and love. It’s how
Friends might be if it had Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy arguing about their one-night stand but with more angst, expletives and full-on puppet sex.
It’s all couched in that learning-is-fun attitude epitomised by Sesame Street, with peppy songs as learning aids for such subjects as handling roommates (If You Were Gay), the web (The Internet is for Porn) and romance (You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want — When You’re Making Love). This London transfer is backed by Cameron Mackintosh, who was behind such West End successes as Les Misérables and Mary Poppins, but don’t expect a conventional show.
“This is like a children’s television show for people who have grown up,” says Robert Lopez, who created Avenue Q with a fellow songwriter Jeff Marx. “When we first met in 1998 at a musical theatre workshop, we felt very uncertain about our futures. I had just finished college and Jeff had just come out of law school and we were both wondering how to make our way in the real world. We wanted to create a musical about that, something that would speak to people our age in their twenties and early thirties.”
However, adds Marx, “our friends watched music videos, not musical theatre, so there was this big gap between MTV and Oklahoma!. Then we figured out that they had grown up on musicals in the form of Jim Henson’s Muppet movies and Sesame Street. No one thought twice about singing puppets. For most of us Kermit the Frog is a real character.”
So much so that Marx and Lopez penned the Hamlet-inspired Kermit, Prince of Denmark. “The Henson company said it had no ‘kid appeal’,” Lopez says, “but the project hooked us up with the puppet designer Rick Lyon, so we decided to create some puppet characters of our own for a TV pilot.” They cite the movie of South Park as an inspiration. “It was a fantastic musical,” Lopez says. “Just as that series used children, we found that brightly coloured puppets gave adult material a much friendlier, more acceptable edge.”
That TV pilot was noticed by the producers of Rent, who saw potential in a stage show. The playwright Jeff Whitty and the director Jason Moore came on board to work with the songwriters on developing it into a more sustained story. “We knew straight away that you had to treat the puppets as real characters,” Moore says. “Obviously we dance round the reality of them being puppets as you always see them on the arms of the performers, so there is an immediate knowingness. But you need to accept the marriage between actor and puppet as a believable character.”
Lyon, whose film work includes the Men in Black films, is a former Sesame Street puppeteer. Marx, too, had been an intern on the show but was fired in 1999. Since both are ex-employees of Big Bird, is Avenue Q some reactive dig at the show? “Not at all,” Marx insists. “During early previews in the States we invited Jim Henson’s widow and children and they could see that what we were doing was a homage and love letter to Sesame Street.”
“It’s all about tone,” Moore says. “There’s always this benevolence of a children’s show that diffuses possible offence at the adult themes. But British comedy gets away with a lot more here. Just think of Little Britain.” And, he adds with a smile, “Cameron asked if perhaps the show might be a bit raunchier for London, so I’m trying to figure out how we can have full-frontal and back puppet nudity at the same time!”
The actors-cum-puppeteers bring to life the inhabitants of Avenue Q, a fictional outer borough of New York City where the rents are still affordable for recent college graduates. It is here that Princeton, an earnest young man, sorry, puppet, shows up looking for life’s meaning and a decent job. His puppet neighbours include Kate Monster, a sweet, furry teaching assistant, and Trekkie Monster, the local pervert. A Japanese therapist called Christmas Eve, her unemployed husband and the bitter Gary, who works for a nasty landlord, make up the human locals.
“Gary was inspired by Gary Coleman," Lopez explains, referring to the former child star of the Eighties sitcom Different Strokes, whose parents squandered his money. “For us, Gary symbolises the world that the show is about: he had a wonderful childhood, but in adulthood he finds that he’s no longer special and it stinks.” No wonder the opening number has the cast proclaiming, in the most joyous manner: “It sucks to be me.”
The show not only mocks Generation X angst but also political correctness and stereotypes. As the catchy number Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist observes: “Ethnic jokes might be uncouth/ But you laugh because they’re based on truth.” The Asian shrink Christmas even delivers The More You Ruv Someone, a torch song full of soulful advice and fractured English.
“I don’t think we’re perpetuating stereotypes but parodying the idea of stereotypes,” says Ann Harada, who originally played Christmas and has now joined the British cast. “I made it clear to the writers that there shouldn’t be any jokes about having problems switching L and R in her speech. All the jokes are character driven. Christmas’s jokes would still work even if I spoke them perfectly.”
The original Broadway production was fortunate to find former Sesame Street puppeteers who could act and sing. Subsequent casts in New York, Las Vegas and now London feature actors trained up as puppeteers.
“We had a week of puppet boot camp before rehearsals,” says Jon Robyns, who plays Princeton and his neighbour Rod. “The biggest challenge for the non-puppeteering actors is to fight the instinct to communicate with our eyes rather than the puppets. And for us it’s a matter of scale. You can’t try to blend into the background as you’re part of the puppet’s character but at the same time you must not distract from the focus on the puppet. And I find I have to stay so focused as the comedy is so quick — I feel as if I’m in The Fast Show.”
Lopez and Marx, currently working on a stage project with the creators of South Park, feel that they’ve grown up with Avenue Q. “I was 24 when we first started on this show and 28 by the time it reached the stage in 2003. Now here I am in London aged 31,” Lopez remarks. “In that time I broke up with my girlfriend, got back together and now we’re married. The lessons the characters learn are the lessons that I learnt.”
Nips and tucks from the Broadway and Las Vegas versions have been incorporated into the London production with the odd American reference changed for clarity. Otherwise it’s essentially the same as its New York counterpart. “And we have a long preview period to build up word of mouth,” Moore says. “That’s how we were able to transfer from off-Broadway to Broadway. It’s kind of hard to explain Avenue Q but when you see it the show makes perfect sense.”
Avenue Q previews from Thursday and opens on June 28 at the Noël Coward Theatre, WC2 (0870 8509175).
Who's who on Avenue Q
Rod A gay Republican banker yet to come out of the closet. Could the love he has for his slacker roommate Nicky be bringing out the homorerotic undertones of Sesame Street’s buddies Bert and Ernie?
Trekkie Monster Echoes of the Street’s Cookie Monster, except that he’s addicted to internet porn rather than sweets
Princeton Preppy graduate who finds he’s no longer special in a “big scary world”
Kate Monster Dreams of starting her own Monstersorri school
Lucy T. Slut The buxom star of Girls Gone Wild (Parts 2, 5 & 7) looks for a place to crash and becomes Kate’s rival for Princeton’s affections
