NY musical becomes completely Chinese

The Tony award-winning musical Avenue Q was set in a fictional New York block and was based on everything the Big Apple offers to exuberant young people looking for life's purpose.

But when the setting was transplanted to a Beijing corner, it became completely Chinese. It's not just the Mandarin but also the gags, subjects and the mentality.

The musical, vivacious and funny and as R-rated as its New York counterpart, is still done with fluffy Sesame Street-style puppets handled by actors. Now it shows young Chinese people's day-to-day lives so well that one is prompted to think it's tailor-made for the group.

The characters are similar to the original. Princeton, the hapless graduate in the original's lead with an English degree, is now Tsinghua (the name of a prestigious university), and he's dismayed over his useless Chinese bachelor's degree. The housekeeper is now the grown-up "little dragon boy", a nostalgic horned cartoon figure for the country's post-1980 generations.

It's not just the names and catch phrases that got local. The musical opens with a discussion on the differences of northerners and southerners—there has long been a comical and hot debate between people from the two regions, who disagree on almost everything from food and seasoning to dialects and bathing habits.

The argument now fits into Avenue Q. Northerners and southerners mock each other in scores and harmonies.

"For nearly every gag there was in the original, we try to localize it to show and fit the circumstances in China," says Cheng He, the translator who took pains to modify the script to Chinese. "We throw away jokes that don't come across to audiences here and actively look for stories pertinent to Chinese experiences."

Each actor is versatile enough to smoothly double in at least two roles, all the while inventing jokes on the go.

Zhang Xiaoqing, who at one moment is the innocent, sweet teacher-to-be Maomao Mei (Kate Monster in the original), can turn around to voice and mime the sensual, sexy, mellow-voiced Lucy the slut.

Celebrities, including Chinese-American comedian Huang Xi (Joe Wong), are making guest appearances in the musical in select sessions.

So even though the story centers on ill-fated, jobless, striving college graduates looking to find work and meaning in their lives, it's the fun and laughs that prevail. Bring tissues: You may laugh until you cry.

IF YOU GO

7:30 pm, Wednesday to Sunday until June 29.

Haidian Theater, 28 Zhongguancun Bei Dajie (Street), Haidian district, Beijing.

010-6255-8026.