Little Shop of Horrors at South Coast Repertory is a five-star delight! From the sets to the music, acting and incredible singers voices, SCR doesn't miss a beat!
At Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, down-on-his-luck Seymour pines for his beautiful co-worker, Audrey, not knowing the feelings are mutual. When he stumbles across a strange and exotic new plant, it looks like Seymour may get everything he’s ever wanted — fame, fortune, and most importantly, love.
But first, he’ll have to tackle the sneaky succulent’s unquenchable thirst for human blood in this thrilling chiller-diller musical bursting with the sounds of doo-wop and Motown! But what’s a few harmless pints of blood between plant and gardener, right?
That gardener is played by Emerson Boatwright, who is generating major nerd charisma in a delicious revival of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (a 1982 Faustian musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken) about a timid, bespeckled clerk who sells his soul to a man-eating fly-trap from outer space. On the face of it, a rather rarefied idea for a musical comedy. But a musical that’s as entertaining as it is quixotic. It begins as a kind of New York slum version of ''The Little Shop Around the Corner,'' and before it gets halfway round that hairpin corner it turns into ''The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.''
The show, presented by South Coast Repertory on the Segerstrom Stage, is set to play through October 20th, and is one of the hottest ticket centerpieces of this fall season's offerings, helmed and choreographed by Jenn Thompson (Nat’l Tour: “Annie”) with near-perfect craftsmanship. Drawn from the famous low-budget Roger Corman film of the early '60s, LITTLE SHOP takes place in an urban ghetto florist staffed by lonesome schlemiel Seymour Krelborn (Mr. Boatwright), basically an indentured servant to the oy-so Jewish and cranky flower shop owner, Mr. Mushnik (Geoffrey Wade), who had let him sleep under the counter as a child.
Mr. Boatwright seasons his ingratiating, dorky persona as Seymour as a song-and-dance kid with a dire helping of rankly corruptible innocence. Onstage, the show has been a deathless favorite of local theater for many years, reminding us of the special potency of grisly things that come in small, unfamiliar packages. And Emerson Boatwright’s affable, offhanded manner seems very natural in a weird mix of sentimentality and macabre, allowing the character to literally get away with grotesque murder.
Cue the sweetly simple Michelle Veintimilla as Audrey, (usually a platinum blonde in most shows, but here with dark auburn locks) with a Jayne Mansfield figure, but a willing punching bag for her slimy, sadistic tooth doctor boyfriend, Orin (the indefatigably vivid Derek Manson), who regularly leaves her with black eyes and twisted arms.
Dressed like he just raided the costumes from “The Wild One” and with a hairdo like he’s in an am-dram production of “Grease,” Mr. Manson, in a show-stopping appearance as Audrey's leather-aproned, pain-inflicting, nitrous oxide-sucking wannabe boyfriend, gives his all in a swaggering performance (which practically made Steve Martin a star in the 1986 Frank Oz film version), approaching the line of going too far, without stepping over it.
As a man who is quickly and justifiably used as Miracle-Gro, Mr. Manson’s solo number, “Dentist!” a delightful little ditty about how his sadistic tendencies convinced his mother he was a shoe-in for the dental profession, combines Presley posturing with a wonderfully wicked delivery as he brandishes a ghastly array of instruments. Seldom has one single scene done as much to set back the integrity of an entire profession as this one. In other words, it’s glorious.
"I find a little giggle-gas before I begin gives me immense pleasure!"
Audrey is also the girl of Seymour’s dreams, and it is in her honor that he bestows the name “Audrey II” on that strange and sickly plant he picked up in Chinatown during a solar eclipse. Their notion of a better life together somewhere in the suburbs ("Somewhere That's Green") is an endearing moment of budding affection.
Audrey II, it turns out, has a voice — a rolling, soulful, irresistibly imperious bass, provided by Michael A. Shepperd, sounding much like a hybrid of Rick James and Barry White. Manipulated by puppeteer Joe Gallina, Audrey II demands that Seymour feed it with human blood. Leftover roast beef just won’t do. Initially using his own well-pricked fingers to appease the carnivorous perennial, the plant keeps growing…and growing to gargantuan proportions, waving its branches and whimpering softly.
Seymour finds himself becoming a star by association with this outsize creature. But maintaining fame requires sacrifice, and human sacrifice, at that. When the plant unleashes its first words: "FEED ME!" demanding human flesh and blood, the digit-impaired Seymour recoils at first.
“Look, you're a plant, an inanimate object."
Audrey II: Does this look inanimate to you, punk? If I can talk, and I can move, who's to say I can't do anything I want?”
After some heavy debate (“Feed Me/Git It”), Audrey II convinces the love-smitten Seymour to extirpate the abusive, greaser DDS as a way to round off two problems at once. And so, integrated with vivid lighting and dramatic orchestral music, Seymour feeds Orin's bloody body parts into the maw of Audrey II. Suddenly it struck me how closely this LITTLE SHOP scene mirrored the texture of Sondheim's “Sweeney Todd.”
Howard Ashman (book and lyrics) and Alan Menken (music) — who would go on to collaborate on beloved scores for animated Disney musicals like “The Little Mermaid” — had the felicitous idea of setting this story to the cadences and close harmonies of Brill Building-style pop. The plot here is annotated in song by a Greek chorus of street Urchins (Robert Merkin and Robert Billig are the deft arranger and orchestrators). Their stylistic provenance is indicated by their names: Ronnette, Crystal and Chiffon, named after early sixties all-girl bands, consisting of the smartly synchronized yet spikily individualistic team of Holly Jackson, Joslynn Cortes and Celeste Butler.
Michelle Veintimilla’s confidence-challenged character, along with a past checkered history with the aforesaid domineering orthodontist, injects commiserating conviction with the audience, whose discomfort is enhanced significantly upon seeing Audrey show up at work bruised and battered from her love life, a visual joke that registers uneasily. Ms. Veintimilla’s fragile, stridently-voiced airhead could turn on a dime, however, and sing with a ferocious, aching intensity that fills the house and goes straight to the core.
Wearing bandage-tight framing dresses and striking graceful poses of distress, this Audrey brings to mind those imperiled dames on the covers of vintage crime paperbacks. Ms. Veintimilla’s sweetly guileless performance is a paragon of abject subservience. In contrast, Seymour is fairly inconspicuous when we first meet him.
But like Audrey II, Seymour continues to grow in presence. As he sidles across the stage, while cradling his newest, truest soul mate, he’s surrounded by those frisky Urchins. Attention is new to Seymour; he likes it, his face aglow with a subtle, gratified half-grin. With renewed confidence, but without ever entirely abandoning his initial deadpan mien or milquetoast voice, Mr. Boatwright charts a precise evolution of a man becoming drunk on the prospect of world renown.
Geoffrey Wade captures the humorous Yiddishisms of the grumpy and meshuggeneh Mr. Mushnik in an all-embracing, sweeping, character turn, and frolics through the mock-tango "Mushnik and Son" with Seymour, wringing laughs from the borsht belt style number with ease. And Bam! That backup trio of street Urchins was flawless in delivery, every note exactly placed and burning with energy, snapping off eclectic, doo-wop, R&B, and even poignant pop ballads effortlessly.
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS has always been an odd musical. Like many horror and sci-fi flicks of the Eisenhower years which satirized the atomic age, LITTLE SHOP is also a fable playing to a nation’s fears of science running amuck. But the strangest aspect of the musical is that just barely beneath the surface beats a sentimental heart. It never condescends to its characters or reduces them to cartoons; it has the goofy spirit of camp, without stooping to chilly superiority.
The actors, of course, are what makes the difference. Perhaps that accounts for the show’s success here. Seymour, for example, is much more lovable in this production, less doltish and lets us see what Audrey sees in him. His vocals also are top-notch throughout, especially on his "Grow for Me" solo, as well as the soaring duet "Suddenly Seymour" with Ms. Veintimilla’s Audrey.
SOUTH COAST REPERTORY PRESENTS, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, with book & lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken. Based on the film by Roger Corman, with Screenplay by Charles Griffith. Directed by Jenn Thompson; Musical Direction is by Angela Steiner; Choreography by Patricia Wilcox; Orchestrations by Robert Merkin; Vocal Arrangements by Robert Billig. The Design Team also features Lighting Design by Amanda Zieve; Sound Design by Ken Travis; Scenic Design by Alexander Dodge; Costume Design by Jessica Ford; Audrey II Puppet Design by Michael Schweikardt; Fight/Intimacy Consulting by Michael Polak; Stage Management by Kathryn Davies. SCR Artistic Director David Ivers; Managing Director Suzanne Appel; Founding Artistic Directors David Emmes & Martin Benson.
CAST: Emerson Boatwright as Seymour; Michelle Veintimilla as Audrey; Derek Manson as Orin & Others; Geoffrey Wade as Mushnik; Celeste Butler as Chiffon; Joslynn Cortes as Crystal; Holly Jackson as Ronnette; Joe Gallina as Audrey II; Michael A. Shepperd as The Voice of Audrey II/Derelict.
UNDERSTUDIES: Analisa Idalia as Chiffon/Crystal/Ronnette; Natalie Llerena as Audrey; Brian Kim McCormick as Seymour/Audrey II; Garrett Marshall as Orin/Mushnik.
MUSICIANS: Louis Allee, Jacob Carll, Tim Christensen, John Sawoski, Brian Silverman.
NOTE: At this performance, Program Changes include the addition of Miles Taber as Audrey II Puppeteer Understudy and a Musician Change for the bass, normally played by Tim Christensen, will be played by Tim Jensen.
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS will run through Sunday, October 20th at 2pm at South Coast Repertory. Approximately two hours, plus one 15-minute intermission. Performances are Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 pm; Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm; Saturdays also at 2:30 pm; Sundays 2 pm. Tickets can be purchased at www.scr.org/ or by calling the South Coast Repertory Box Office at 714-708-5555.
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
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