Theater: Avenue Q

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Clearly both honoring and mocking "Sesame Street," Avenue Q features male roommates not unlike Bert and Ernie; Trekkie Monster, who's interest in porn is akin to Cookie Monster's love of sweets; and phonetics lessons on video screens. Puppeteers successfully share the stage with puppets, giving them dynamic emotional range through body language and facial expressions. Expertly executed choreography enables nearly seemless switching of puppets between puppeteers (though the voices for each character are consistant) and several instances of two puppeteers working with one puppet. Tunes such as "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" and "Schadenfreude" make the audience laugh, but also communicate poignant messages. Truly a joyful performance.

Life on Avenue Q lives a fine line between satire and innocence, truth and cute. Perhaps only living in Brooklyn could produce angst and laughter. Combining the muppets with the older Japanese theater where up to three people, visible to the audience, manipulate a 3 foot tall puppet. In New York, this translates to the actors using muppet style puppets: most charming and clever. A fairly intellectual endeaver, this is not the show for children. Rather, this musical will certainly attract the tri-state theater goer. The audience sometimes rolled with laughter due to very New Yorkish lines. Not only do we see the conflict of good and evil, the charaters overcome obsticles, live in tension, and maybe overcome adversity. You'll have to find out yourself. The cast contained, not constrained, some talented actors. Not to mention the talent required to manipulate the puppets as they talked and sang. The actors gave the puppets personality for which I commend them. A fun musical, you probably will enjoy your evening at the Golden Theater, which is alovely, real NY initimate theater.