"Little Shop of Horrors" takes the entire concept of vegetarianism and stands it on its head. It’s Michael Pollan’s worst nightmare. Instead of people eating plants, plants eat people. The heroine, hardly a Green Goddess, precedes today’s thinking by several decades when she sings of her dream, a house — even in New Jersey — as long as it’s "Somewhere That’s Green."
But green is not necessarily good, because the plants are preparing to take over the world, an action that begins on a day when Seymour, a nebbish of a flower-shop employee is caught in an eclipse of the sun while carrying a strange new plant. And by the time the umbra and the penumbra have finished doing their thing, the plant has magic powers. It’s all downhill from there.
The bright, funny, spoofy musical, born from Roger Corman’s films, is the best score that Howard Ashman and Alan Menken ever wrote. It opened the 23rd season for Stages St. Louis last night at the Robert Reim Theatre in Kirkwood and will run through June 28.
Actually, there’s a strong Kirkwood connection. Besides serving as the home to Stages, Kirkwood was the boyhood home of Michael Hamilton, the theater’s artistic director and director last night, and when "Little Shop" first was mounted off-Broadway in New York, it was at the hands of Kyle Renick, another Kirkwood product who produced it at the WPA Theatre.
Ben Nordstrom is a delight as Seymour. He looks the part, with a youthful face and attitude, and he handles the acting, singing and movement in fine style. Maria Couch is Audrey and Todd Dubail plays a variety of roles, from the motorcycle-riding, sadistic dentist ("I’m the leader of the plaque," he boasts) to several passers-by of various sexes and attitudes. Darin De Paul, who has worked at Stages before, is Mushnik, the flower shop owner, and his duet with Nordstrom over a question of adoption is a delight.
Couch and Dubail bothered me a little, though I think it was director Hamilton’s doing to take them far over the top, putting the characters to an almost-hysterical level that didn’t mesh properly with the softer portrayals by Nordstrom and De Paul. She and Nordstrom are excellent as they juggle extra-long telephone cords in "Call Back in the Morning," and "Suddenly, Seymour" has a winsome appeal.
Valesia Lekae, Lisa M. Ramey and Rashidra Scott are bright as new dimes as, respectively, Chiffon, Ronnette and Crystal, a spoof of doo-wop girl singers of the ‘60s who also serve to advance the story. Geno Segers, with a splendid bass voice, adds the necessary depth as a derelict who sings a bit and as the voice of Audrey II. Marc A. Petrosino does the heavy lifting as the plant’s (his? her? its?) manipulator.
Richard Ellis’s set has a problem with entrances and exits. Since the shop and the sidewalk outside it use the same space, actors have to negotiate an awkward route at stage left, making a figure-eight around a trash basket and a door jamb, to get in and out.
John Inchiostro’s costumes work very well, as does the choreoraphy by Stephen Bourneuf and Matthew McCarthy’s lighting. "Little Shop" is a lot of fun, with a fine score and excellent voices. Take the children!
At the Robert Reim Theater, Kirkwood, through June 28.