The plant, Audrey II, with Seymour (the charming Tenaj Williams)
(Photo by Moonrider Productions)
This is my fifth draft of this review.
Previous drafts have started with “Free the bimbo!” and “This production could accurately be renamed Little Shop of Crippling Good Intentions.”
Overall, I don’t think the production succeeds.
But I’m out of snappy ledes, so let’s get right to the analysis — as soon as we’ve covered the synopsis.
In Howard Ashman’s book for Little Shop of Horrors, Seymour Krelborn, a timid assistant in Mr. Mushnik’s flower shop on Skid Row, discovers an weird little plant during a solar eclipse. Seymour is smitten with Audrey, Mr. Mushnik’s other employee, but she is in the sway of Orin Scrivello, her emotionally and physically abusive boyfriend.
Yes, this is a musical in which domestic violence is a major dynamic — and sometimes it’s played for laughs.
How could domestic violence be funny? [Read more…]
