Do not treat upcoming puppet musical, Avenue Q, as wanting to emulate Sesame Street completely. The fact that both productions contain puppets is perhaps the only similarity they share.
Conceived by Americans Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx in 2003, Avenue Q became a multiple Tony Award-winning musical in 2004 that has puppets spouting provocative song lyrics with titles such as, “The Internet is For Porn” and “If You Were Gay.”
Charlotte Nors, executive director for The Singapore Repertory Theatre that brought in the musical, said, “Avenue Q has been called Sesame Street for adults - a street-smart musical for the iPod generation.
“We hope to get new audiences - and audiences who may not normally be interested in musicals - to join us on Avenue Q because it’s fun and different.”
This irreverent humour of using puppets to deliver comedy with adult-themed content might have already struck a chord with NUS students.
Third-year history major, Jeanne Tai, said NUS students will probably react to Avenue Q with “relish.”
She said, “Teens and young adults have an innate attraction to the perverse, controversial and iconoclastic. And of course, anything dealing with sex.”
Given the risqué nature of the show, which is restricted to viewers 16 years old and above, one might think that the appeal of Avenue Q is based on cheap humour.
But the original musical also dealt with grave issues of unemployment and disenfranchisement with urban living, coincidentally in time with the current economic doom and gloom.
To aggravate matters, one of the songs, “What do you do with a B.A. in English?,” pokes fun at the pointlessness of a university education.
At least one student is looking to this self-reflexive side of the musical.
Second-year geography major, Wong Yi Fong, said, “It's so much funnier because, as the audience, you realise that there is indeed a grain of truth in what they say.”
Even though the musical also pokes fun at taboo issues, such as pornography and homosexuality, audiences are banking on the puppets to make it “a lot more palatable to a wider audience.”
Accountancy student, Angeline Goh, said, “I think they should be receptive because it is after all a comedy, and a good one at that, which Singaporeans dig a lot in general.
“Plus, it deals with real and mature issues in a not-so provocative manner through puppets.”
Perhaps, the puppets can make audiences feel better with a foreseeable economic downturn looming.
Nors said, “With the current gloom and doom all around us, we all need to escape a little and Avenue Q is just that.”
Avenue Q’s run in Singapore, beginning on Oct. 30, features a cast predominantly from the Philippines.
Students are entitled to 25% discount on tickets for shows on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. For more information, go to http://avenueq.sg |
