Avenue Q, Manila

We saw this last Saturday night, June 21st. It was pretty good. Most of the cast held their own although the main characters I felt weren't that consistent in their voices. But considering that these particular folks were in charge of two characters each, they can get tired over the run of the musical, so... The human characters were not as engaging as the puppet characters. And the rendition of the closeted-homosexual puppet was a bit "forced". In some early Broadway previews of this musical, I thought I saw the people portraying the puppets to be dressed mainly in black and had pale make-up. In the Manila production, they were wearing gray tops and were really acting out what the puppet was supposed to be doing but are limited in doing. So it appeared that the puppets were extensions and props. On the other hand (pun?), if the production kept to the original design, the puppets may have stood out more, but more of what's behind the words and between the lines may get lost. Filipinos are more visual, I think. One example was in the song "The more you ruv someone." Christmas Eve's line "like two brothers who go on a date" was not met with any reaction at all. Anyway, it was a nice enough experience although hearing the original cast recording previously, I would have preferred seeing that cast's production. Plus one comment regarding the theater (Carlos P. Romulo) over at RCBC Tower in Makati: there's something wrong with the spacing of the seats. Two relatively large guys in front of you and 50% of the view gets blocked already - and I'm a relatively tall person myself. And there was a mouse running about I saw during intermission. This cast is off to Singapore so good luck to you guys! Good job! Oh and I was surprised to find out Aiza Seguerra was in the cast playing the building administrator ("Super") Gary Coleman. She did her part well except for her hand gestures which were, um, mostly down-then-pointing-out-towards-the-audience. Over and over. Was she trying to act like a puppet too? :)