THEATER REVIEW: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ @ClevelandPlayHouse by Laura Kennelly

LittleShopTop

Through Sun 2/7

In a brilliant new look at the now-classic Little Shop of Horrors, the Cleveland Play House flirts with (and has a comic blast doing so) important questions such as: What price success? And do plants think? The answers are “anything” and “evidently they do.” Or at least they do in this jazzy update that combines music and mayhem with quick-moving gusto.

The production, directed by Amanda Dehnert, owes a lot of its color and flash to the quintet of street urchins/musicians (Hallie Bulleit, Brittany Campbell, Kate Ferber, Injoy Fountain and Alanna Saunders) who comfortably occupy one side of the Allen Theatre stage.  A bit of a Greek chorus, a bit of sassy commentators, these talented performers also step in as characters when needed.

They kickstart the story’s fatal chain of events with a jazzy smile-provoking “Little Shop of Horrors” that moves smoothly into a Motown “Skid Row.” They never let up the pace as the tale unfolds.

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It’s a simple enough plot. Set in a failing flower shop, people come and go as the plant, aided by puppeteer Kev Abrams, grows. Later deep-voiced Eddie Cooper joins in as the insatiable “voice of the plant.”

That the plant loves mankind (as a food source) comes as a shock to our shy hero Seymour (charmingly played by Ari Butler) who discovers this after cutting himself and accidentally feeding it with his own blood. Soon, he’s not enough. It takes him, alas, too long to realize that compromise in moral matters (he becomes more and more desperate to find “plant food”) has painfully serious consequences.

When Ari falls for the charming Lauren Molina, as a delightfully ditsy (yet loyal) Audrey, he gets tangled in an involuntarily close encounter with her dentist boyfriend, Orin (a super-cool Joey Taranto). The hapless flower shop owner (a fussy Larry Cahn) loves having a big attraction (the plant) to bring in new business (until he doesn’t).

Quibbles: On opening night the sound system had a few problems (which may be inevitable in the space that depends perhaps overmuch on electronic amplification and balance) which made it impossible to hear some of the dialogue over the music.

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Little Shop of Horrors has, like a plant, grown and absorbed various versions. According to the Cleveland Play House, it started in 1915 with a marionette show, then it became a 1960 film, The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman.  After that, in 1982, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken presented it as an Off-Broadway musical (the version playing at the Cleveland Play House), and in 1986, it became a Frank Oz film starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene and Steve Martin. Robert Merkin composed the orchestration and Robert Billig provided the vocal arrangements for The Cleveland Playhouse production.

Bottom Line: This beautifully realized musical botanical nightmare should take the chill off the season and make you just as happy that nothing is growing outside right now. Little Shop of Horrors runs through Sun 2/7 in the Cleveland Play House’s Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. For tickets call 216-241-6000 or go to clevelandplayhouse.com.

clevelandplayhouse.com

[Written by Laura Kennelly]
 

Cleveland, OH 44115

 

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