Eat, Prey, Love in the Little Shop of Horrors

Eat, Prey, Love

Little Shop of Horrors
Lyrics by Howard Ashman based on the film by Roger Corman. Music by Alan Menken and screenplay by Charles Griffith
Directed by Simon Coleman. Musical director Jason Te Mete, with choreography by Sandra Rasmussen
Auckland Theatre Company at Q
Until November 25

Little Shop of Horrors is Auckland Theatre Company’s end-of-the-year musical – a production which combines all the elements of the American Dream and the American Nightmare.

It tells the tale of Seymour Krelborn, a worker at a florist on Skid Row who unwittingly cultivates a plant which has arrived from outer space. The unusual plant becomes famous as it begins to grow.

It saves Mr Mushnik’s flower shop, brings him closer to his co-worker Audrey and turns him into a celebrity.

However, the carnivorous, speaking plant forces him to move outside his moral compass, which ultimately leads to the disappearance of all the main characters.

The musical is a pastiche and homage to both the B-grade science fiction films and mindless musicals of the 1950s and 60s.

Several of these sci-fi films such as The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are poorly disguised metaphors about American fear of the outsider and particularly the fear of creeping communism, where the familiar turns out to be the menace.

Like West Side Story, it has the girl and boy dreaming of life in the suburbs away from depressing Skid Row. It is a dream which will never be realised.

One of the features – which very few productions address – is the use of subtitles in the form of text projections which enable the audience to know what is being spoken and sung on stage.

It is assumed that singers have fine voices and excellent diction, that the theatre has great acoustics and that those in the audience all have perfect hearing.

This is rarely the case. It is also the major problem with Little Shop of Horrors, particulary with the chorus, the Ronnettes. They are superb performers but their enunciation in the first numbers means you hear less than half the words.

They do get better but there are several occasions when witty lines are lost in the mash of crooning and wailing.

Just as well the principals have good voices, with Tim Carlsen (Seymour) showing that it is easy to deliver lines so that everyone can hear.

He gives a spectacular performance and dances as if he has double-jointed arms and legs as he flails around the stage like a deranged stick insect.

Paul Barrett (Mushnik), as always, delivers a solid, believable character, while Andrew Grainger plays a variety of roles, including the sadistic creep Orin – a vicious biker whose day jobs as a dentist provides satisfying vignettes.

Audrey, played by Colleen Davis, gives a sparkling performance, even if her voice has the occasional problem.

The star of the show is Audrey II, the ever-growing plant which has been given a life by designer Tracey Collins, manipulator Kyle Chuen and is voiced by Rima Te Wiata. A combination of penile and vulval elements, it provides a loathsome contrast to the purer sexual relationship between Audrey and Seymour.

Little Shop of Horrors is macabre, surreal, pacey and witty. There are clever songs, inventive music and a stylish set – the recipe for a great evening’s entertainment.