Little Shop of Horrors Open Air Stage Reviews
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A blooming marvellous revival of a classic musical
Sowing the seed: Audrey 2 (Vicky Phonation) tempts hapless botanist Seymour (Marc Antolin)Bill Knight for theartsdesk
The resplendent partnership of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman – which produced Disney hitsAladdin, Beauty and the Animate being and The Trivial Mermaid – first took root with this 1982 Off-Broadway musical, based on a depression-budget Sixties moving picture, nearly a man seeking beloved and fortune via a bloodthirsty plant.
This revelatory revival from Maria Aberg embraces the work's B-pic dichotomy: equal parts dark, gory fable and riotous carnival of delights.
Orphaned Seymour (Marc Antolin) is nerdy assistant to the Skid Row florist who took him in as a child. He pines after colleague Audrey (Jemima Rooper, pictured beneath), who'south in an abusive human relationship with sadistic dentist Orin (Matt Willis), and finally finds a manner to win her affections – while also turning effectually the failing shop – by creating a new, exotic plant species: the towering Audrey Ii, which feeds on human mankind.
The near eye-catching casting is American drag queen Vicky Phonation every bit Audrey Ii (principal image), a character usually represented past puppets. It's an ingenious decision, 1 that feels so immediately right it's difficult to imagine the show washed in whatsoever other way. With commanding, cabaret-styled stage presence and a firm grasp of allusion, Voice'due south Audrey 2 is a hateful, green enticement machine, tempting Seymour into further sin like some unearthly combination of Mephistopheles, genie and Frank-N-Furter.Towering over her prey in glittering heels or "Feed Me" go-go boots, voluptuous in skin-tight dark-green spandex and fishnets, Vox's sensual succulent embodies the transgressive qualities of the story – Seymour'south repressed desires come to life, and the moral Venus flytrap into which he wanders. Crucially, Aberg'due south production doesn't sugar-coat his deportment, making the story's beginning death a visceral, grotesque fix-piece that results in Seymour airsickness off the stage.
Throughout, at that place's a perfect balance of tones: subversive horticultural horror with a gentle emotional core. Rooper'south "Somewhere That's Green" – in which Audrey longs for the American Dream version of suburban bliss, where there's "plastic on the piece of furniture" – is eye-stopping in its yearning simplicity (and, terminal night, a real dusk obligingly matched Howard Hudson'south dreamy lighting). Besides, Antolin brings a sweet earnestness to Seymour; their romantic duet, "Suddenly, Seymour", is exquisitely euphoric.
Aberg'southward production is however faced with the trouble of a domestic violence subplot written in queasily semi-comic fashion, and with Audrey's concerns that she's not pure plenty for the virtuous Seymour. Only there'south effective work from Rooper to differentiate between the (literally) bubblegum-pink drawing layer of Audrey and the troubled human beneath, and so that her choices feel accordingly weighted and her fate has meaning.The entire company is in terrific voice, led by doo-wopping Greek chorus Christina Modestou,Seyi Omooba and RenĂ©e Lamb (pictured higher up). This slick trio cements the show, with Omooba in particular a brilliantly witty commentator on events. Matt Willis (of boy band Busted) brings the necessary manic energy – and some peachy mic stand moves – to the nitrous oxide-huffing Orin, as well every bit gamely producing a series of outlandish characters in the second one-half, while Forbes Masson is a droll delight as the kvetching shopowner Mr Mushnik.
Tom Scutt'south striking set has a graphic novel quality: monochrome, crumbling tenement blocks surrounded by rubbish and rubble, with model versions of buildings pushed around in shopping trolleys by Skid Row's downward-and-out occupants. The broken drive-in theatre sign, once proudly proclaiming "God Bless America", nods to the era'due south malaise, as well as to the work's cinematic origins. Against this backdrop, spots of color pop: Seymour and Audrey'south blue and pink costumes, the sprouting green invasion of Audrey II.
Lizzi Gee cleverly incorporates the trolleys in her choreography, which – matching the score's mix of rock n roll, Motown, doo-wop and ballads, rousingly delivered past the ring – ranges from elegiac contemporary to lightning-fast period pastiche and a rocking climactic number that spills out into an increasingly anthropomorphised park. This finale is the wild capper to a thrilling evening – the full-blooded, feel-expert hit of the summertime.
- Trivial Shop of Horrors at Regent's Park Open up Air Theatre until 22 September
- Read more theatre reviews on theartsdesk
@mkmswain
With commanding, cabaret-styled stage presence and a business firm grasp of innuendo, Vicky Phonation's Audrey II is a mean, greenish enticement motorcar
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