Avenue Q - The Farewell Run

Friday night at RCBC plaza. The auditorium was filled with young professionals and theatre aficionados. It was the night I was watching Avenue Q. I've been listening to the soundtrack for the past few months, and that alone was something I really enjoyed. I wanted to be able to experience it in its entirety. And truely, it did not disappoint.

Avenue Q is a parody of Sesame Street. It is a play featuring human puppets, monster puppets, and humans. The story revolves around Princeton, a young man straight out of college, starting to explore the real world. He moves in to Avenue Q (a fictional street in the outskirts of New York) as he was starting to deal with the challenges of jobs, relationships, and the search for purpose. There are characters who are recognizably parodies of some Sesame Street characters, like the roommates Rod and Nicky who are like Bert and Ernie, and Trekkie Monster who has the similarity to Cookie Monster. The characters are already in their 20s and 30s struggling through their own challenges in life. It also has its own share of profanities, as well as a lot of reference to porn, sex, and homosexuality.

It was really dedicated to the generation who grew up on Sesame Street and Batibot. After all, that generation (myself included) are the ones who are now in their 20s and 30s probably going through the same struggles as these characters. The younger generation would probably not be able to catch the other subtle references of the play to Sesame Street and Batibot. For example, during the start, there was a video intro that looked so similar to the Batibot opening sequence.

My favorite characters were the "bad-idea bear", who always had their way at getting the main characters into trouble, but making it seem like their trying to help them out. They show how cute and adorable temptation always seem to be (haha!).

I also adore Carla Guevara, the one who played Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut for this season. I'm sure it's a real challenge to play the two extremely different characters (in terms of voice and attitude), and she did it really well.

Their next run will be in Singapore. I'm greatly recommending this, it's really a great show!