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.