"Little Shop of Horrors" is a funny, little musical. It's based on a silly (albeit dark) idea, and it doesn't try to achieve too much depth. It just lets itself be what it is: silly.
Our hero is Seymour (Blake Pfiel), an orphan. Seymour works for Mr. Mushnik (New Rep favorite Paul D Farwell), a florist who took him in when he was a boy. But Mr. Mushnik's shop is on skid row, and its days are severely numbered. That is, until Seymour develops a new and fascinating plant! Which unfortunately turns out to survive exclusively on human blood. Also, there is a girl, Audrey (Susan Malloy), involved: Seymour's feelings for Audrey are made clear by his choice of name for the deadly plant (he calls it the Audrey II). Within this setup, the plot thickens and unfolds.
Each number in "Little Shop" is accompanied by three doo-wop girls, Chiffon, Crystal, and Ronnette (Jennifer Fogarty, Lovely Hoffman, and Ceit McCaleb Zweil), who serve to remind us that this a joke. They open the show with a prologue, choreographed to include lots of finger snapping and synchronized head turns. Throughout, they remain on the sidelines, adding harmonies and camp.
The show is held together by its incredibly strong lead: as Seymour, Blake Pfiel is the perfect mixture of sweet and determined, and his beautiful voice elevates each of his numbers far above the rest. Malloy is a very capable Audrey, and Farwell delivers his classic grumpy old man with perfection as Mr. Mushnik.
While director Russel Garrett gets many things right, his use of the doo-wop girls missed the mark. Instead of contributing to each song, they took away, with loud performances that stifled the harmonies. While they do need to be over the top in order for the show to work, in this case they were unable to strike the right balance, creating a sense of discord throughout the production.
This was my first time seeing "Little Shop of Horrors", and I expected to like it much more than I did. Aside from the issues I've mentioned, there is little to fault with this particular production; however, something about it failed to ignite. "Little Shop" was very successful in its off-Broadway run, and less so when it did go to Broadway in 2003. Perhaps this production would have been better served by New Rep's downstage black box space. As it stands, this show does not manage to fill the Charles Mosesian theater - there's simply not enough to it, and, as an audience member, it was difficult to invest in.
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