A Familiar 'Shop' with a Few Highlights — LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS at MVT

I kicked off my Halloween weekend this Friday with a trip to Manoa Valley Theatre to see their production of Little Shop of Horrors—a gentle entry into the season of fright. I haven’t seen the show on stage before and I haven’t seen the movie with Rick Moranis in I don’t know how long, but long, and yet this production felt familiar.

The little flower shop of horrors—Mushnik’s—is set in urban Skid Row, in the…“now”? That’s what it says in the program, though it felt thoroughly past-tense; when, exactly, would be hard to pinpoint. In the opening lines of the show, the audience is told that the story happens “...in an early year of a decade not too long before our own...” OK, so that settles it. Good. It’s in the past, with corded telephones. The story is also set in a place and time when it’s “normal” for a girl to get beat up on by her boyfriend and for others to stand idly by (until someone doesn’t...). That could be the present or the past, depending on where you are and who you talk to. The stoops are peopled with a trio of high-school dropout, hustling singing girls. The play is set in motion because a once-orphan-boy-now-man finds an exotic new breed of plant.

This sci-fi horror musical classic holds a kind of cult status for many. The show is fun to watch, with the catchy songs, the off-kilt characters, and the eventually enormous Audrey II, a blood-thirsty plant with the power to corrupt the innocent. The MVT production offers a quality straightforward staging, with a few highlights.

Leiney Rigg as Audrey (Audrey the first, for whom the plant is named) shines for her singing and stage presence. She captures the essence of “urban damsel in distress” with pathos and humor, a real delight to behold. In the penultimate number/scene in act two, “Green,” which comes before the finale, Rigg, aided by the plant and Seymour, delivers just the right amounts of horror, humor, and heart.

Pedro Armando Haro (Seymour) reminded me a lot of Rick Moranis. His Seymour is awkward, nerdy, meek, and very likable. His interaction with Audrey II—both the baby and grown-up versions—contains the heart of the drama. Audrey II, brought to life by puppeteers Braddoc DeCaires and Jared Duldulao, and voiced by Myles M. McGee, is the perfect contrast to Seymour: Bold, loud, demanding, and manipulative. Certainly the most dynamic and captivating man-plant relationship I’ve ever witnessed. The intellectual payoff comes in realizing that the plant is simultaneously the best and worst thing that has ever happened to Seymour.

Larry Bialock plays Mushnik, the owner of the flower shop. He brings a well-shaped character to the ensemble. Nicholas B. Gianforti plays most of the other parts, including Audrey’s sadistic boyfriend Orin, with a funny, stagey, revolving-door energy that’s well-matched to the overall style of the show. Melody Davis, Cassie Favreau-Chung, and Rachel Wong—the singing girls—act as a chorus, singing and interacting with the other characters, and transforming to fit the needs of the plot. They round out the cast with style and sass.

The design elements were all at the level and scale you can regularly expect from MVT—really good, professional quality. The set, props, and costumes (Benjamin MacKrell, Sara Ward, and Dusty Behner) create a scheme of contrasting and complimentary shapes and colors, giving the show a look that is at once recognizable and yet not quite of this world—edgy gutter fantastical.

Guest Director Scott Rogers presents an overall enjoyable finished product, with the aid of Guest Musical Director Kenji Higashihama and Guest Choreographer Katherine L. Jones. Without offering much in the way of surprises, Little Shop at MVT meets and satisfies expectations, with act two being especially engaging as the big finish approaches and the big plant and Seymour have their final showdown, after which, the world will never be the same…

For more info, visit the MVT website or the Facebook event page. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Thriving Tradition on Stage — THE GENTEEL SABAI at KT

Image
by Guest Contributor   Nicole Tessier The Genteel Sabai , playing at Kennedy Theatre through February 12, marks only the third time that UH Mānoa has presented Randai, a traditional martial arts–based theatre form of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra. I was fortunate enough to perform in the previous version seven years ago, so the following are observations from an Anak Randai (child of Randai).   The performers enter from the back of the house, which gives the audience a taste of what it feels like to be up-close and personal. But if you want to get the true Randai experience, arrive early to grab a space in the first-come, first-served “on stage” seating area. This will allow you to be just inches away from the performers, similar to a traditional village experience. Sitting on stage, I could literally see the sweat on the brows of the hard-working dancers. This is an extremely physical theatre style based on the Indonesian martial art form of Silek and the perfo
Read more

Cuz That's What the Play's About — ONE COMEDY OF ERRAS at KKT

Image
Shawn Anthony Thomsen is not only my friend, but also one of my theatre heroes. Not the kind of hero that basks in the glory of constant praise with puffed-out chest and arms akimbo. The kind of hero that works long and hard, day after day, for all the right reasons. The kind with a touch of genius tempered by a dash of humility. A seriously gifted sense of humor balanced by an acute sense of seriousness. Photo by Jonathan Reyn (stolen from Shawn Thomsen's facebook page) OK, he’s not dead or anything. He’s just directing his first show at Kumu Kahua Theatre. And, in my obviously biased opinion, he kills it. Given a script loaded with stereotypical and not-so-stereotypical Honolulu characters, twists and turns, talktalktalk, hitting, yelling, singing, insulting, and then some, it’s hard to imagine a director actually adding and layering. But that’s exactly what Thomsen does. He embraces Taurie Kinoshita’s One Comedy of Erras , wraps his arms around it, caresses it, shapes i
Read more

What Theatre Should Be — SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE PAHALA THEATRE at KKT

Image
“The dramatist who is not a poet is only half a dramatist”—John Howard Lawson, Theory and Technique of Playwriting (298) In other words, plot can only get you halfway. The language of a play must—in order for the work to transcend the obvious, the mundane, the predictable, the banal—be poetry. A poem is not a play, but put the right collection of poems in the right hands and—voila! You have the most exciting and engaging production I’ve seen in any theatre, anywhere, ever. Seriously, it’s that good (in my limited experience and humble opinion). Saturday Night at the Pāhala Theatre is an award-winning collection of poems by local author and educator Lois-Ann Yamanaka. Director Harry Wong III and his team have fashioned the book into a play, rearranging some things while keeping the integrity of the original work firmly intact. Individual poems become scenes, and though the “narrative” is fragmented, the overall effect is a testament to the quality of its parts. The scenes ran
Read more