Little Shop of Horrors brings down the greenhouse
by Leslie Wylie
Many of us could tell horror stories about our struggles with pathologically self-destructive plants—vegetation that seems bent upon death, whose chronically wilting leaves fall like organic suicide notes despite bribes of water, fertilizer and sunlight.
Homicidal plants, however, are significantly less common. The most famous representative of this species may be Audrey II, carnivorous star of the darkly comedic cult-classic Little Shop of Horrors. "I'm a mean, green mutha' from another planet," the mutant Venus Flytrap warns potential prey at the pinnacle of its nightmarish growth spurt.
The problem is that Audrey II's equivalent of Miracle Grow happens to be fresh human blood. Flower store nerd Seymour, who mysteriously acquires the initially small and ailing plant during a total eclipse of the sun, discovers the key to satisfying its hunger only after pricking his finger on a rose and feeding it a drop.
As the peculiar plant grows larger, Seymour's earnest but ineffectual life begins to blossom. Business in the ramshackle Skid Row flower shop begins to boom; a long overdue father/son relationship is cultivated between shop owner Mushnik and Seymour; and the plant's namesake, a flaky platinum blonde named Audrey, turns her attention away from her sadistic dentist boyfriend long enough to notice her geeky but endearing co-worker, the lovesick Seymour.
"Feed me, Seymour," the ravenous Audrey II famously demands of its anemic caretaker when self-laceration is no longer enough to mulch the garden of its appetite. So begins a series of massacres that is at once murderously funny and disturbingly murderous.
Plot sound familiar? Little Shop adaptations have been potted in several different genres since the original 1960 Robert Corman screenplay, a B-grade film best known for its two-day production and introduction of a young Jack Nicholson in a supporting role. During the early '80s, an off-Broadway musical shallowly rooted in the film gained national popularity and led to the 1986 film version directed by Frank Oz.
Fans of the movie version, however, may be taken aback by the stage interpretation's rebuttal of a satisfying "boy gets girl" Hollywood ending. Of note is the fact that the screenplay's original conclusion, a spectacular special effects sequence that portrayed a King Kong-scale Audrey II straddling New York City architecture, was canned after being poorly received by test audiences.
The Bijou Theater Center's production, directed and choreographed by Lar'Juanette Williams and Drey Herron, is authentic to the stage play's original plotline. This makes the characters' bittersweet fates difficult to digest for an audience that may find itself hard-pressed not to get attached to the cast.
Lindsey Andrews, with her squeaky-toy voice and innocent sexiness, fits the role of Audrey like a custom push-up bra. It's impossible not to root for Seymour, whose roller-coaster descent into desperation is well traced by Michael Brown. The Urchins (Shamicka Benn, Quinn Fortune and Aisha Jordan) serve as a kind of street-smart Greek chorus, and Autry Davis's role as Mushnik is eloquently performed. The dramatic spotlight, however, may linger on Tony Cedeno's portrayal of Dr. Orin Scrivello, the leather-jacketed, nitrous-huffing dentist from hell.
There is also, of course, the plant. After maturing from menial curiosity to man-eating cabbage, the puppet's giant tentacles flail in its eagerness to make slaw of anyone who comes within munching distance. Personification is encouraged by surprisingly humanlike mannerisms, the most resonant being a swaggering Motown voice (provided by Brian Bonner).
Brightly lit, cartoon-like sets encourage the audience to have fun with the notion of terror. In fact, the whole thing is produced in the manner of a big, drawn-out corny joke: two-dimensional characters, a preposterously silly plot and kitschy production. It tricks the audience into laughing it all off, just before turning around and forcing them to look what it perceives as funny in the eye. What's the humor in a garbage can full of body parts, or the comedy in watching someone get eaten alive?
Little Shop thrives on the duality of humor and horror in the same way a sick joke makes us simultaneously laugh and feel disgusted, or a ridiculously grotesque slasher flick is equally capable of producing screams and giggles. Comedy and acute fear operate on the same principle: the element of surprise. Both tap into the primitive part of the psyche that instantaneously links stimulus and reaction without the meddling of right-brain rationale.
Careful scrutiny of Howard Ashman and Alan Menkin's subtly subversive lyrics aside, Little Shop steers its audience away from being too cerebral and taking the musical too seriously. This is necessary for obvious reasons (when has the willing suspension of disbelief been more necessary than when dealing with an alien avocado?) and some that are less so. Sometimes nothing can be more delicious than a wholesome serving of creative contradiction. Except maybe human blood....
Just kidding.
November 6, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 45
© 2003 Metro Pulse
| 
