Avenue Q

Took the girlfriend to see this for her birthday last night. Originally I had wanted to get tickets for The Book Of Mormon but the cheapest decent seats on offer were around $400 apiece - I don't care how good it's supposed to be, I'm not paying $800! Anyway Avenue Q was our second choice and the tickets came to a much more civilized $200. I think we made a good choice, it's an excellent show!
 
I had no idea what to expect having never seen any clips or even stills from the performance. I had this vague question in mind: "how will a puppet show work on stage." And it was answered from the get go - the actors walk around the stage carrying the puppets, they make no attempt to hide or "throw" their voices or anything like that. This is not a ventriloquist show. At first I thought huh, that's going to annoy me. But as it turns out, it's actually a very watchable and novel set up. The actors act along with the puppets, i.e. their facial expressions and movements match those of the puppet they're operating. It's this weird kind of experience where you're half watching the puppets, half watching the actors. And it really works! The puppets are only heads, arms and torsos so in a way, the actors provide their legs. It's like you're watching these bizarre puppet/human hybrids. A couple of them are operated by two actors, which again was weird. 
 
We really enjoyed this show, it was zany and a lot of fun. The set was pretty simple but really well done, they made a great use of the space. The music was a bit so-so....you know, the usual cheesy Broadway melodies, but the performances were pretty much perfect. I think my only gripe was the sound system, it was a little brittle and fatiguing, a little too much in the 800-1000Hz for my ears. Oh and the 7 foot ass in front of me who graciously slunk low in his seat for the first half but sat bolt upright for the second half so I had to crane my neck around him to see some of the stage....
 
All in all a great night and I would recommend it. Definitely not suitable for children though. 

craigb
$200 to watch puppet-hybrids?  Ok... 

Please don't make me think about it objectively