Avenue Q

Reviewed by Socks Whitmore
The Wayward Artist @ Grand Central Art Center Theatre
Through July 30, 2023

 RECOMMENDED

It’s funny, it’s furry, it’s an infamous fan favorite—The Wayward Artist presents the “Triple Crown” Tony winner for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book, Avenue Q (music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx and book by Jeff Whitty), in the cozy little theater of Santa Ana’s Grand Central Art Center. When fresh-faced young Princeton moves into a shabby New York apartment on Avenue Q, he encounters and soon befriends an eclectic cast of humans and muppets. As romance blooms between Princeton and his neighbor Kate Monster, he finds himself questioning his purpose in life. The hijinks unfold in the style of PBS’s Sesame Street, albeit riddled with questionable choices and sexual innuendos.

The show opens with the cast vocalizing offstage as a cheery animated intro plays on the three suspended video monitors, immediately setting the tone as “edutainment.” Other mini edu-vids serve as transitions between scenes throughout the show, punctuating ideas like “P is for Purpose.” (You might also catch parody advertisements and delightful 80s/90s throwback videos playing on the monitors during intermission.) The raunchy comedy strides an interesting balance between kiddish and rated R, sporting singing cardboard boxes, mischief-making Bad Idea Bears, and a vigorous puppet sex musical number. Taking advantage of its snug size, the venue goes the extra mile to immerse the audience by covering the interior walls with colorful chalk art and profane graffiti; some gems include “I’m pro-opera and I vote!” and, “Justice is better served wet.”

Though the direction feels admittedly near beat-for-beat to the Avenue Q Broadway cast album, the performances are the production’s greatest feature. Wyatt Hatfield pulls impressive double duty as naïve Princeton and the repressed Rod. Anyssa Navarro similarly executes skillful switches between sweet Kate and the sultry Lucy T. Slut, delivering a rousing rendition of “There’s A Fine, Fine Line.” Both actors amaze with ventriloquistic gymnastics as the puppeteers switch off to cover the expansive cast of characters. Myles Prower Davis (who covers Nicky, Trekkie Monster, and a variety of other ensemble puppets) exhibits a similar skill with character voices, and surprises the audience with a silky smooth saxophone serenade as an overture to Act II.

Oddly, Davis’s role as Nicky is the only normal-sized puppet to utilize a secondary puppeteer (Kelsey Redmond) for the majority of the show. Though Redmond does an excellent job at supporting Davis, the clunky double-footed movement of two actors bound to one puppet feels unnecessary in many instances and distracts from his snappy characterizations. Another character that tends to flop is Christmas Eve (Gloria Henderson), a trope-happy stereotype of a Japanese woman that Henderson inhabits unenthusiastically. Not all of the racy humor has aged well since the musical’s Broadway debut in 2003; the treatment of racism in particular has fallen outside the realm of today’s standards, and jokes like the featured role of TV’s Gary Coleman are no longer in the lexicon of younger audiences. Avenue Q’s production viability may wane as public taste adjusts, but for now—it’s as gut-busting as ever.

Grand Central Art Center Theatre, 125 N. Broadway #E Santa Ana. Thurs.-Sat., 7:30 pm, Sun., 2:00 pm; thru July 30. https://www.thewaywardartist.org/avenue-q Running time: two hours and 30 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission