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Kate Monster, Kelli Sawyer, Angela Ai, Rod, Minglie Chen. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

I didn’t expect much of Avenue Q. Sure, I knew the foul-mouthed Sesame Street parody won a boatload of Tonys in 2004, but look at what it was up against: A Peter Allen jukebox musical (really? Peter Allen?), the Boy George musical fiasco, a beautiful but overly weird art piece and a big-budget children’s show. Is it any surprise that the only production to try anything new walked away with Best Musical? It didn’t help that I’d heard the soundtrack before going. Some of the songs—”If You Were Gay,” “The Internet Is for Porn” and “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”—are clever enough, in a sort of sophomoric “aren’t we naughty” kind of way, but none of them are very good show tunes. While I can recall a lyric or two, there isn’t a single song in the show that I’m humming the day after the show. Even Wicked had me singing “Popular” under my breath for a week.

So, given all of that, I was somewhat surprised that I actually enjoyed the touring production of Avenue Q, playing at Keller Auditorium through this Sunday. It’s the puppets that make it—finely designed in imitation of Jim Henson’s Sesame Street cast, they turn what would otherwise be an unremarkable revue into a pitch-perfect parody of afternoon television. The interaction of puppet and human characters plays well, and the fact that you can see the puppeteers singing doesn’t bother at all. Especially if you’re a bunraku fan. And everything is funnier when it’s said by a furry puppet. All the absurdity, from the frank talk about porn (people walked out) and racism (people walked out) to the graphic puppet sex (people walked out) and the murder by coin in the second act (they were all gone), is great, meaningless fun. There’s no lasting value to a show like this, and that’s not the point.

For all the show’s cynicism, it is essentially feel-good pablum. The realism of songs like “Special” is undercut by the finale, which reminds us that all our problems, George W. Bush included, are “only for now.” Well, sure, if you’re white and educated.

The production does have some serious problems. Last night the sound was terrible, and many of the songs were completely unintelligible. It didn’t help that one of the characters, Christmas Eve, is saddled with the most offensive Asian immigrant accent since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Think I’m exaggerating? Watch this, from about halfway through:

A lot of people I’ve talked to about the show aren’t bothered by the characterization of Christmas Eve the Japanese therapist. “It’s just like Margaret Cho” is a common comment. But is Cho’s mocking of her mom really the same as three white dudes mocking Cho’s mom? I really don’t think so. The other stereotypes in the show (Gary Coleman, a Jewish comedian and some, um, monsters) are a little bit racist, but this—this is a lot racist.

I think Christmas Eve is part of an ugly trend in American popular entertainment of heinous caricatures of Asian Americans. We get away with it because Chinese, Korean, Indian and Japanese immigrants are generally perceived as more successful than other immigrant groups. That’s not really true—there are plenty of dirt-poor Chinese-Americans in Portland—but it’s a persistent myth. And so not many people object to Mad TV’s Miss Swan, The Love Guru and Kung Fu Panda. If the creators of Avenue Q had included a minstrel show, the audience would have walked out of the first performance and the show would never have made it to Broadway. But it’s fine to mock the Japanese with an accent that no Japanese immigrant has ever had. The Asian immigrant is, evidently, the 21st century’s negro. And everyone seems to be just fine with it.

Guess everyone is a little bit racist—even in a galaxy far, far way:

1. Don’t Miss The Puppet Show: Avenue Q Rush Tickets Available Didn
2. Curtain Raiser: Fertile Ground Continues, Fall of the House Returns, Plus Puppets! As the f
3. The Other Hot Potato Coming to City Hall: Proposed 39th Avenue Renaming In case
4. Block Party: With Dave Chappelle in Town, NW 23rd Avenue Gets a Surprise Celebrity Visit Yes, we he
5. Hoodies R Us: Brooklyn Industries Opens Today on Northwest 23rd Avenue There are

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 8:14 am and is filed under Neighborhoods, Stage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.