Old People Like Avenue Q, Too!

                I recently attended a performance of the national touring company of Avenue Q in Washington, DC.  Strangely, the show was at the Lansburgh Theatre of the Shakespeare Theatre Company.  I didn’t know they did national tours there, but it was quite a treat, since the Shakespeare Theatre Company played a huge part in shaping me into the fanatic theatergoer I am today.  When I was a teenager, my dad took me there to see A Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, and others.  These experiences opened my eyes to the wonders of stagecraft and opened my mind to the possibilities of what theater could be.

                Cut to the present, a full-circle moment for me, my first time seeing Avenue Q, a musical which certainly broadened the scope of possibility for what musical theater could do, be, and say.  Awesome.

                My date for Avenue Q was my mother.  Having had my eyes opened to my faulty presuppositions about what older generations of theatergoers could handle (read my [title of show] post about that HERE), I decided to give my mom the benefit of the doubt.  I don’t know why I was ever nervous about it.  My mom may be 62, but she’s a cool, independent, open-minded, left-wing 62-year-old who has, on occasion, called me a prude.  Still, she’s my mom so I often prefer to remain naïve about some of the truths about her.  We rarely admit to ourselves that the things we did in college are the same things our parents did in college, and despite our very existence as evidence, we fail to acknowledge that parents are people too, sex lives and all.

                So, I had some reservations initially – would my mom be offended by “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist?”  How would she react to some of the more colorful vocabulary?  Would the graphic puppet sex shock her?

                It turns out that my mom really enjoyed it!  She told me that the only thing she thought was really  “out there” was the raunchy sex in “Loud as the Hell You Want,” but that it was okay since they were puppets.  “They don’t even have a bottom half,” was her comment on the matter.  She also said that her bad ear made it difficult for her to her the register of Christmas Eve’s speaking voice.  But my mom, age 62, gave Avenue Q the thumbs-up.  Her favorite part?  Kate Monster’s line “Is her name Purpose?”

                And me?  I loved it, of course!  I was already more than familiar with the music, and I was delighted by the scenes between musical numbers.  I also really enjoyed the use of the televisions as a complement to the comedy on stage.  There were two understudies on – for Brian and for Princeton/Rod – and the whole cast was phenomenal!  I was initially surprised to see the role of Gary Coleman played by a man, but he was excellent.  I thought the show was wonderful, relevant, and hilarious.  And now I know my mom can handle it.

And, just because it's amazing, I've posted from YouTube the amazing Avenue Q/Fiddler on the Roof mashup!