Perfect timing?
| Courtesy photo |
You might think that “Avenue Q,” the play that irreverently marries “Sesame Street” with “Rent,” might get a mixed reception at the National Theatre. After all, how would its closeted Republican puppets and a pointed anti-Bush line at the end go down just a mile from the Capitol and a short walk from the White House?
Quite well, actually.
Wednesday night’s crowd howled wildly when “Rod,” the blue puppet with a roommate and a “secret,” reveals that he’s not an artist, but rather a Republican, and his therapist tersely suggests that he should stay in the closet. Hmm, which members of Congress might the patrons be thinking of?
And the audience gave Rod a big hand in the second act, when he finally comes out to his friends.
But not as big as the hand it gave the cast during the final number, “For Now,” when the players delivered their line about President Bush.
“George Bush,” they sang, “is only for now!”
The writers must be prescient, because a spokeswoman for the show tells us that both lines have been in the play since it was written in the early days of the Bush administration — well before the president’s poll numbers plummeted and the GOP began to struggle with the “secrets” of its own elected officials.
