Thursday, August 2, 2007

Avenue Q

Last night I saw the musical Avenue Q at Spreckles Theatre in San Diego.



The theater was interesting. I can’t imagine how this place passes code. It’s not dirty or anything like that but the balcony section was engineered for mountain goats. It sits at a severely steep angle and one of the ushers almost took a tumble but was caught by a guest. The seats were kind of constraining and it was hot. Aside from those relatively minor (albeit life-threatening) complaints it was a pretty nice place.



The show was great. The performers did an excellent job of conveying subtle body language in the puppets that those of us in the up on the cliff could easily pick up on. The singing was as wonderful as you’d hope to see in a Broadway musical which added a nice touch of surreality to the bawdy lyrics.



I think my favorite songs from the show were “The Internet Is For Porn”, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, and one that I believe the title is “If You Were Gay”. As you might guess from the titles this is not a show for children or those who are easily offended. That being said I would still recommend it just about anyone over the age of 25.



Although the story is primarily about Princeton and Kate Monster, every character gets a share of the spotlight. I would like to have seen more of the Bad Idea Bears whose pure subscription to social disorder really speaks to the baser aspects of my personality.



If you’re the kind of red-blooded American who can enjoy crude humor this is for you. If you think you’re too mature for this sort of thing, have fun seeing Phantom again, I guess.