A bloodbath can be an awful lot of fun when it’s Audrey II you’re talking about, the man-eating plant in Cleveland Play House’s delicious celebration of the ultra-campy: Little Shop of Horrors.
Director Amanda Dehnert has modernized this 1982 musical by replacing its original trio of street urchins with five sexy girl band members. This quintet of Equity performers, dressed in tank tops and jeans for the first act, sings and interacts with the rest of the cast while playing keyboard, bass, guitar and drums in front of Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists.
They dance, speak and serve as a chorus to the story’s action. But this onstage band at times creates a sound imbalance, making it hard to hear the lyrics.
It’s still a fun juxtaposition to see and hear these modern-looking women rocking out to a score of early rock, Motown and doo-wop sounds, including the popular title song and Skid Row (Downtown).
This comedy horror rock musical, based on the 1960 film by Roger Corman, was adapted into an off-Broadway musical by book writer and lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, of Disney fame. Canton native Lee Wilkof originated the role of Seymour off-Broadway. The musical ran on Broadway in 2003/2004.
In Cleveland, Ari Butler is highly likable as the nerdy, insecure Seymour, whose life working in a dingy florist shop is terribly drab until a strange plant comes into his life. He nurses the unusually large Venus flytrap-like plant to health and learns quite accidentally that it requires human blood to thrive.
Seymour names the plant Audrey II after the girl he loves, who also works in the shop. As Audrey II grows by leaps and bounds, the shop and Seymour attract fame. That fame and power begin to corrupt Seymour, and he resorts to desperate measures to feed the insatiable plant.
Audrey II starts out small, grows into a bigger pot and has a big reveal as a huge, beautiful monstrosity in purples and greens. The moment actor Eddie Cooper gives voice to the Audrey II puppet onstage, booming “Feed me!” is a dramatic one, and his urgent vocals in Feed Me (Git It) rev up the show.
Inside the magnificent puppet, which extends to full human height above its pot, is puppeteer Kev Abrams.
Broadway star Lauren Molina is lovable as Audrey, the chintzily dressed girl with the heart of gold whom the initially timid Seymour loves. Her character’s in an abusive relationship with sadistic dentist Orin, and Molina creates a heart-rending showstopper in the tune Somewhere That’s Green, in which Audrey reveals that she yearns for a stable relationship.
Joey Taranto is delightfully over the top as Orin, who creates one of the most twistedly funny death scenes ever in Now (It’s Just the Gas).
This musical is a satire of sci-fi as well as “B” movies. Helping to create that campy and cartoonish world on the Cleveland Play House stage is scenic designer Philip Witcomb, whose two-story decaying flower shop set and billboard backdrop provide the setting for the ambitious Audrey II’s atrocities.
Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com. Like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kclawsonabj or follow her on Twitter @KerryClawsonABJ.