Veronica’s Room by Ira Levin (1973)

TW: Xenophobia, Rape Mention, Child Molestation, Incest, Gaslighting, Nudity, PTSD, Psychosis, Demonized Mental Illness

 

SYNOPSIS

            Susan and her new boyfriend have arrived at the Brabissant manor to see a photo of the middle daughter, Veronica, that Susan looks strikingly similar to. John and Maureen, the old retainers, convince Susan to pretend to be Veronica for just a few minutes because Veronica’s sister, Cissie, is dying of cancer and believes her sister to be alive and angry with her. Susan hesitantly agrees and they refresh the room while Susan changes into Veronica’s clothes from 1935. Everything is in order when the boyfriend goes downstairs until John and Maureen leave to get Cissie and bolt the door shut. Maureen returns with warm milk completely changed into 1935 dress and dismisses any remarks Susan makes about their charade while relentlessly referring to her as Veronica. John returns, also dressed for 1935 and referring to Susan as Veronica. They have become Mr. and Mrs. Brabissant and act as if Veronica has gone mad and call for the family doctor. Just when Susan has almost given up, she hears her boyfriend knocking on the door only for him to enter as the doctor. Susan continues to refute the nonsense until the doctor holds up a syringe to sedate her. Susan then complies an admits to being Veronica who’s locked in her room for killing her younger sister that found out she had been molesting their younger brother. Once Susan confesses, Mrs. Brabissant suffocates her to death. The three begin undressing and the doctor also undresses Susan’s body while they argue and discuss this being the last girl. The doctor admits to hating his role in this and only participants to get the bodies. He leaves with Susan’s corpse. The remaining man and woman reveal themselves to be Veronica and Conrad, the younger brother, while the doctor is actually their son that Veronica wanted to kill when he was a baby. They put on this ruse so that Veronica can punish “herself” for what she did to Cissie and Conrad as children. Just as Conrad thinks Veronica is finally free of her afflictions she starts slipping into a psychosis believing herself to be Susan and then back to a younger version of her actual self that’s still locked in the room, begging for her parents to let her out even though Conrad freed her once their parents died and the door is fully open at the moment.

 

CHARACTERS

Young Woman – Polish German-American, Susan

Young Man – Belgian-American, Plays the boyfriend Larry and Dr. Simpson

Man – Belgian-American, Conrad, Plays John Mackey and Mr. Brabissant

Woman – Belgian-American, Veronica, Plays Maureen Mackey and Mrs. Brabissant

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES

            Woman has a monologue as Mrs. Brabissant explaining why Veronica is locked in her room to Susan. It’s lengthy and could use a few cuts not only for timing but keeping the monologue self contained. Even then, it’s a list monologue and may not hold up well for cattle call auditions.

            Young Woman has a monologue that stands better alone where she rants about who she actually until she sees the needle an back pedals into agreeing to be Veronica. I would suggest cutting from her term paper being do to the line asking about the needle and then cut to her going “No No!” I highly recommend stopping when Young Woman says she was only pretending instead of getting into the grittier details.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            Well it’s certainly a dark show. The first act takes a while to get going, but once the latch is locked and we move into Act II the audience understands that Susan is a prisoner. The gaslighting goes quickly getting worse and worse for Susan before the illusion begins to drop with the girl being murdered. The reveal of the truth is quite twisted and I could see this being made into a short horror film.

            About the trigger warnings, while the people playing them are descended from Belgians, Larry makes multiple pejorative remarks about them bring Irish as John and Maureen speak with a brogue accent in addition to the term welshing being used as a synonym for swindling someone.

            Although the stage directions clearly say that the doctor removes the bra from Susan’s body, it would be easy to have him take the body while she’s still dressed in undergarments if a theatre wishes to avoid nudity on stage. She keeps her panties on so any theatre that just doesn’t want the actress’s bare breasts exposed could also have her wear pasties under the bra and be carried out with her chest hidden from the audience.

Little Shop of Horrors – Book & Lyrics by Howard, Music by Alan Menken (1982)

 

TW: Domestic Violence, Self Harm, Prostitution Mentioned

 

SYNOPSIS

            Seymour Krelborn has recently found a strange and interesting new plant that seems to be just what Mr. Mushnik’s flower shop needs to drum up the customers its desperate for, however Seymour discovers that the plant requires blood to keep it alive. At first Seymour feeds the plant his own blood, but soon Audrey Two’s demands become too much to keep up with. There’s fame and fortune on the line and Seymour witnesses a glimpse of just how horribly Audrey’s boyfriend, Orin Scrivello, DDS treats her, giving him the perfect target. Seymour can’t quite go through with killing Orin himself, but patiently lets the dentist asphyxiate on laughing gas and feeds the body to Twoey. Mushnik adopts Seymour in a bid to keep him loyal to the shop that’s now doing better than ever, but when he witnesses Seymour cozying up to the newly single Audrey, he starts putting two and two together about Orin’s disappearance. Seymour tricks Mushnik into climbing into Audrey Two as a means to avoid being taken to the police. Realizing the horrible things he’s done, Seymour vows to finish off the plant, but tries to wait until he can get in a photo op with Life Magazine. In the meantime the plant grows hungrier and hungrier. With Seymour refusing to kill for it anymore, the plant lures Audrey into the shop and fatally wounds her before Seymour rescues her. Audrey chooses to be fed to Twoey so that Seymour can prosper from the sacrifice. In the morning, yet another opportunist visits to harvest saplings from Audrey Two so that every home in America can have one. Realizing Twoey’s ultimate goal, Seymour lauches an attack against the plant that horribly fails and ends with him being Audrey II’s last on stage victim. The plant indeed conquers America from coast to coast preying on jerks that are willing to kill for fame and fortune.

 

CHARACTERS

Crystal, Ronnette, & Chiffon – Three Black female street urchins who function as participants in the action and a Greek Chorus outside it. They’re young, hip, smart, and the only people in the whole cast who really know what’s going on. In their “Greek Chorus” capacity, they occasionally sing to the audience directly. And when they do, it’s often with a “secret-smile” that says: “we know something you don’t know.”

Seymour – Mid-twenties and perhaps balding a little. Our insecure, naïve, put upon, florist’s clerk hero. Above all, he’s a sweet and well-meaning little man. He is not a silly, pratfalling nerd, and therefore should not be played as the hero of a Jerry Lewis film.

Audrey – The bleaxhed-blond, Billie Dawn-like, secret love of his life. If you took Judy Holiday, Carol Channing, Marlyn Monroe, and Goldie Hawn, removed their education and feelings of self-worth, dressed them in spiked heels and a low-cut black and then shook them up in a test tube to extract what’s sweetest and most vulnerable – that’d be Audrey.

Mr. Mushnik – Their boss. A failure of an East Side florist. His accent, if he has one, is more of middle class New York than of Eastern Europe. He seldom smiles but often sweats.

Orin – A tall, dark, handsome dentist with a black leather jacket and sadistic tendencies. He is not, however, a leftover from the movie version of Grease. Think instead of an egotistical pretty-boy – all got up like a greaser but thinking like an insurance salesman and talking like a radio announcer. (The actor who plays him also plays A Voice not unlike God’s, Wino #2, Customer, Radio Announcer, Mr. Bernstein, Mrs. Luce, Skip Snip, and Patrick Martin.)

The Plant (Audrey Two) – An anthropomorphic cross between a Venus flytrap and an avocado. It has a huge, nasty-looking pod which gains a shark-like aspect when open and snapping at food. The creature is played by a series of four increasingly large puppets, manipulated by one Puppeteer. (Who also plays Wino #1 in the first scene.) The first time we see The Plant, it is less than one foot tall. The last time we see it, it fills the entire stage.

Voice of the Plant – Provided by an actor on an offstage microphone. It is important that this actor have clear visual access to the puppets onstage, so that he can provide accurate lip-synch. The sound is a cross between Otis Redding, Barry White, and Wolfman Jack. Think of The Voice as that of a street-smart, funky, conniving villain – Rhythm and Blues’ answer to Richard the Third.

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES/SONG CUTS

            While Seymour has enough spoken dialogue during “Da Doo” to make a monologue with, it lacks the kind of merit needed for cattle call auditions. It’s something you’d use to test a potential Seymour’s stage presence during call backs. “Grow for Me” is a great song that can be cut to just the last stanza for actors that need more time for their monologues in a combined audition. It’s a well known song, so folks wanting to use something less known from Seymour might consider some of his parts from “The Meek Shall Inherit” which I believe was cut from the movie version.

            Audrey has her I Want song, “Somewhere That’s Green.” Personally I like the dark humor in the first two stanzas and it should feed alright to jump from them to the last stanza, but music isn’t my strong suit. Still I know it’s a song that’s used regularly enough for auditions.

            Orin’s “Dentist” is a hilarious song for character singers, but it’s hard to compete with Steve Martin’s film version of the song. I don’t suggest using this overly well known song unless it’s the best thing you have in your book.

            While Mushnik does have enough singing lines in Mushnik & Son, it’s generally regarded as one of the weaker songs in the musical. What Mushnik does have is enough lines that can be strung together just before “Suppertime” when he’s accusing Seymour of offing Orin. His threat about telling the cops himself if Seymour doesn’t come with him will be a wonderfully threatening way to end the monologue even without the minor chords playing underneath it.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            This was the first show I performed in when I started high school and will always hold a place near and dear to my heart. It’s campy and unafraid of it and for that I love this show that continues to do well with audiences ever since the earliest versions of it that pull from John Collier’s “Green Thoughts” (1934) and Aurthur C. Clarke’s “The Reluctant Orchid” (1956.) Having grown since 2009, I was worried that Mushnik’s character would seem like an antisemitic portrayal revisiting it but discovered that Jewish allusions aren’t confined to that one character. The show only exists in this form through the comedy of Jewish humor to the point that the 80s movie version was featured in the 2020 lineup of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Of course, a Jewish person’s opinion on antisemitism will always outweigh that of a goy.

            This is a fun and dark musical that pulls from science fiction, B movies, and even the Faust legend. You get a good picture of it seeing the show, but reading the script opens up more references than a viewer can catch in just one performance, especially if their approaching the show with fresh eyes. Howard Ashmen put a lot into how the book was written if you can’t tell from the character descriptions.