By Wendell Brock

For the AJC

Princeton, a recent college grad with a useless BA in English, is searching for purpose in life. Kate, a sweetly earnest young woman who wants to start a school for disadvantaged kids, seems awfully enticing to Princeton — until he encounters a busty blonde named Lucy.

Will Princeton find happiness? Will his uptight neighbor Rod, who is secretly in love with his roommate Nicky, ever come out?

The answers to these and other scintillating life questions can only be revealed by a visit to “Avenue Q,” the furry, deliberately raunchy “Sesame Street” send-up that’s making its first visit to Cobb Energy Centre through Sunday.

The quirky little puppet show that upset the 2004 Tonys by snatching the best musical prize from “Wicked,” “Avenue Q” is so cleverly crafted and pertly written that it holds up on repeated viewings, never failing to arouse “I can’t believe they just did that” responses to the hot-and-heavy puppet sex and audacious lyrics. Squeamish parents are advised to cover their ears during “The Internet Is for Porn,” and if you are the kind of person who can’t abide ethnic jokes, you may not appreciate the clear-eyed truth of “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.” (For the record, “Avenue Q” is recommended for ages 13 and up and features "full puppet nudity.")

Conceived by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx (music and lyrics), with a book by Jeff Whitty, the loopy tale of post-college angst and initiation is populated by an out-of-work Jewish comedian named Brian (Tim Kornblum) and his Japanese therapist wife, Christmas Eve (Lisa Helmi Johanson). And it imagines the term “monster” as a racial category for “people of fur.” So on the one hand (literally), you have the young and idealistic Kate Monster (the terrific Jacqueline Grabois), and on the other you have the insatiable Trekkie Monster (Michael Liscio Jr.), whose addiction to “cookies,” as best we can tell, is limited to those of Internet porn sites. Residing over this cluster of apartments on the outer edge of New York City is none other than troubled former child star Gary Coleman (Nigel Jamaal Clark). The delightful song “It Sucks to Be Me” describes the whole kit and caboodle of “Avenue Q,” but it really, really applies to the Coleman character.

My affection for this material is long, enduring and well-documented. And once again, I can only marvel at the level of artistry: the doubling up and switching off that requires puppeteers to play multiple roles and provide voices for characters that they aren’t even manipulating. Grabois is especially fine as Kate and Lucy, and her rendition of “It’s a Fine, Fine Line” is a heartbreaker.

Structurally, the show has always been muddied a bit by the similarity of the characters Rod, Princeton and Nicky; and in this case, though Brent Michael DiRoma (as Rod and Princeton) is no slouch and has a lovely voice, his treatments could use a little more delineation.

From the start, Johanson’s faux-Japanese accent obscures a good bit of her text. But by the time of Brian and Christmas Eve’s wedding, all is redeemed. The clash of yarmulkes and obis is hysterical. One of the smartest musicals of the last decade, "Avenue Q" is rich in nonsense and, for a show that's made mostly of foam rubber and fake fur, it offers a social critique that's weightier than you might think. Delightful.

Theater review

“Avenue Q”

Grade: B+

8 p.m. tonight-Saturday. 2 p.m. Saturday. 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday. $15-$63. Cobb Energy Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. 1-800-982-2787; ticketmaster.com