Few artists are more synonymous with Disney’s Renaissance period than composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin owe much of their lasting impact to this duo’s music.
Before sweeping audiences off their feet with songs of magic carpet rides and gizmos aplenty, however, these collaborators were best known for their stage work. One of their most enduring off-Broadway musicals has a lot of bite to it, and is currently playing at the Solvang Festival Theater thanks to the Pacific Conservatory Theatre (PCPA).
In the same vein as Sweeney Todd, Little Shop of Horrors is full of morbid melodies, dark humor, and buckets of blood. Audiences witness a small potted plant grow into a gigantic flesh-eating monster all within the confines of a floral store in an urban skid row.
There isn’t an enchanted castle or talking candlestick in sight, yet the downtrodden setting of Little Shop feels lively enough to fit Disney’s rubric thanks to the show’s punchy songs—made up of rock, doo-wop, and Motown melodies—and, in PCPA’s case specifically, a vibrant set that’s both bombastic and eerily intimate.
Scenic Designer Joe C. Klug’s silhouettes and shadows of scraggly high-rises—which tower just above the floral shop—light up in colorful ways throughout the production, probably the most memorably so during flashes of a thunderstorm. Props (pun intended) to Lighting Designer Cody Soper and PCPA’s creative team for expertly immersing us in this dismal yet inviting landscape.
There’s actually a disclaimer to warn attendees of theatrical haze and fog in the show, which is recommended for ages 12 and over due to its dark subject matter. Spoiler alert: The singing plant that eats people is just the tip of that iceberg.
The musical’s most terrifying character is Orin Scrivello (played by George Walker), a sadistic dentist who takes pleasure in pulling his patients’ teeth without anesthetics and abusing his girlfriend, Audrey (Molly Dobbs), a kind woman who works at the floral shop alongside the show’s meek protagonist, Seymour Krelborn (Alexander Pimentel).
Early in the show, Krelborn mistakes Audrey’s black eye for eyeshadow, which he cluelessly compliments. The more he learns about her abuse though, the more he narrows down Scrivello as the perfect person to offer up to his new pet project.
Krelborn is secretly feeding his own blood to the shop’s most unique plant (voiced and eventually personified magnificently by Diva LaMarr), as it seemed to be the only way to get it to grow. But the larger the plant creature, dubbed Audrey II, grows, the less Krelborn’s bandaged fingers suffice.
Whether you’re a fan of the musical’s 1986 film adaptation (with Rick Moranis as Krelborn and Steve Martin as the deranged dentist) or a newcomer to this material (which itself was adapted from a 1960 B-horror flick), PCPA’s Little Shop of Horrors promises a devilishly fun time.
In the show’s program, director Keenon Hooks summed up Little Shop as full of camp and toe-tapping music, “but underneath it all comes a lot of heart from the characters. … You might surprisingly find a little bit of yourself onstage at times, and I urge you to embrace those feelings.”
One of Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood’s family dogs was named after Seymour Krelborn. Send comments to [email protected].
