Little Shop of Horrors–the odd Roger Corman movie about the extraterrestrial man-eating plant that invades Skid Row–is about to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary (it premiered in the summer of 1960). The musical version created by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman was a surprising Off-Off-Off Broadway hit more than 35 years ago, and then immortalized in 1986 by Frank Oz. The performances in that film, notably Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, and Steve Martin–with the impossibly perfect voice of Levi Stubbs as the alien plant, Audrey 2–still echo in the mind of any lover of musical theater, but you don’t see it revived very often. For good reason: it is a tough show to pull off. It takes creativity, brains, and not a little courage.
The nearly legendary Pasadena Playhouse didn’t let any of that stop them. They’ve mounted a five-week run of a brand new imagining of Little Shop, this time with a cast that’s so smart, professional, and racially and culturally diverse it’s almost dizzying. And everything about it works.
The show is full of surprises, especially when it comes to casting. Both the lead roles-George Salazar as Seymour and Mj Rodriguez as Audrey–are proudly Latino; three amazing new African American actors, in their first professional roles, play the street-level Greek chorus that open and close the show (as pretty much the only survivors) with flawless, powerful performances, and Amber Riley–probably best known as Mercedes Jones in Glee–is the passionately evil voice of Audrey 2 herself (which, when you think about it, probably should have been a female from the very beginning). And Matthew Wilkas as the sadistic dentist Orin–another survivor, but this one from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark–gives us a truly despicable portrayal that actually somehow makes you forget all about Steve Martin. Throughout the voices are powerful. Rodriguez’ “Somewhere That’s Green” and her duet with Salazar, “Suddenly Seymour,” are powerful and tear-jerking, and both remind you how it is this show rose from virtually nowhere to become a cultural icon.
Opening night
And then there are the puppeteers. Sarah Kay Peters, Tyler Bremer, Kelsey Kato, Tim Kopacz and Paul Turbiak don’t just make Audrey 2 come to life; they make her fill the whole damn–the whole damn theater—with a truly artful use of everything from traditional puppetry to strings of light to glow-in-the-dark paint. And when Audrey 2 is revealed in all her repellant glory near the world-ending end of the play, as silly as the whole concept is, it actually sends chills down your spine. Blame those puppeteers for that.
Very little is altered from the original ’82 production. All the songs–including those that didn’t appear in the 1986 movie–are here. The street-level influences of doo-wop and Motown are fully on display, and there is little acknowledgement given for the new multiracial ‘look’ of the show, almost as if it’s always been that way…though “Somewhere That’s Green,” evoking images of a relentlessly white middle-class suburban paradise, do seem a little odd. Still, the doo-wop and Motown influence in the original score shine more brightly than ever now, and a powerful voice like Riley’s truly makes Audrey 2 rise above the level of parody and dig deep into your brain. It’s a strangely intimate show, too–only eight people in the cast, top to bottom–but it plays big, big, on a deceptively bare stage with brilliant lighting (in more ways than one).
It’s not an easy task, breathing life back into a musical that everybody already knows. No doubt half the audience on opening night could have sung along, line by line, for most of the big numbers. But other than exuberant hoots at all the right places, nobody dared interrupt what was going on–on stage and all around them. This is exactly what revivals are supposed to do: remind us why these shows were so wonderful the first time around, and how they can be again for a whole new generation.
Little Shop of Horrors runs only at the Pasadena Playhouse, and only through October 20. It’s a shame not everyone can see it. It truly is something special. — B.M.
