At first, quick consideration, Little Shop of Horrors, with its bright, bouncy tunes, might seem like a typical Broadway musical. But it’s hardly that. In fact, it’s twisted – as wonderfully twisted as when it debuted and became a big hit off-Broadway twenty years ago. It still plays well in a modern era in which productions about urine are the rage.
    Last year’s Broadway revival is now touring in full, horrifying glory. Still a "small" show, even in this Broadway version, Little Shop succeeds marvelously despite a lack of big production numbers or chorus lines of dancers filling the stage. While it’s almost difficult not to feel sorry for Little Shop’s humans who are relegated to sharing the stage with an irresistible man-eating plant, Anthony Rapp and Tari Kelly perform admirably as the odd couple at the center of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s goofy yet meaty Faustian tale.
    Rapp (best known as Mark in the Broadway production of Rent) plays Seymour, a meek worker at a skid row florist shop who makes deathly sacrifices in search of fame, fortune, and love with Audrey (Kelly), his sexy blond co-worker who has an abusive, sadistic dentist boyfriend (James Moyle.) Seymour is nothing short of successful, particularly after the odd plant he acquires from a Chinese shop grows to incredible and newsworthy proportions as he feeds it drops of his own blood.
    Everyone is taken in by the drama, and profit-making ability, of the plant, which gets named Audrey II. Seymour’s boss Mr. Mushnik (Lenny Wolpe) and the tough neighborhood gals Chiffon (Yasmeen Sulieman), Crystal (Amina S. Robinson) and Ronnette (LaTonya Holmes), a Greek chorus dressed in Motown girl group clothing, are thrilled with the fortune Audrey II is bringing to their street.
    Ashman and Menken’s score, a mix of pop styles that sounds nothing like show tunes, is just one subversive element of Little Shop. Twenty years ago, the incidence of doo-wop, rock ’n’ roll and rhythm and blues coupled with lyrics chock full of "oldies" pop references was unusual for a theatrical score. Equally weird is Little Shop’s gruesome, yet fun, book, an improvement on a story from the B-movie of the same name by horror king Roger Corman, written by Charles Griffith.
    Every character’s motivation is immediately clear in the tight writing and songs that waste not a note or lyric. Opening numbers ("Little Shop of Horrors" and "Downtown") set the down-and-out scene, while Seymour and Audrey’s hopes and dreams are clearly delineated in "Grow for Me" and "Somewhere That’s Green." Still, not often is a musical’s "hero" a monster with no redeeming characteristics other than an insatiable appetite and the vocal abilities of a soul singer the likes of James Brown.
    Yet the show’s true stars are the puppets and puppeteers behind its one-of-a-kind plant (actually, there are four sizes) which was created by Martin P. Robinson and the Jim Henson Company. New and improved for the Broadway run, this Audrey II, in its final and biggest incarnation, weighs 3,500 pounds and has a pod-mouth the size of a Mini Cooper. With its shape inspired by a Venus Ladyslipper orchid, the plant’s beauty lies not only in its grand design, but in the fact that it’s the realization of an amazing collaboration between stagehands, manipulators Michael Latini and Paul McGinnis, and the spiritual voice of soul singer Michael James Leslie.
    Ironically, while the larger-than-life plant is clearly the thing in Little Shop of Horrors, the show retains its human heart – a fine testament to the power of Ashman and Menken’s vision and director Jerry Zaks’ impeccable execution.

    San Francisco, November 11, 2004                                                  - Leslie Katz