Little Shop of Horrors

Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage to October 8, 2023
Tickets from $39 at 604-687-1644 or www.artsclub.com

Posted September 15, 2023

If you absolutely must do the horror, rom-com rock musical, Little Shop of Horrors, go BIG, really BIG. And that’s what the Arts Club is doing. Big sound is delivered live by Caitlin Hayes, Sean Bayntun, Mark Richardson, Monica Sumulong Dumas and Colin Parker under the direction of Caitlin Hayes. Big shabby skid row set by designer Beyata Hackborn, lit by Rebecca Picherack. Big 60’s choreography by Gianna Vacirca. And some very glitzy, sequinned costumes, in a couple of numbers, by Carmen Alattore.

The  show, directed by Arts Club Artistic Director Ashlie Corcoran, got big, rolling-in-the-aisles laughs and a standing O on opening night. Okay, I get it: times are tough and people need a good laugh.

But we also need exciting, thought-provoking, shake-us-up theatre. For example: the Firehall is opening its 2023-2024 season with Peace Country, an examination of intercultural friendship, the realities of northern living and the vilification of northern communities in the fight against the climate crisis. The Cultch is opening its Historic Theatre with Fairview,  a radical examination of power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play that confronts notions of theatre, race and surveillance. Pacific Theatre starts off with Empire of the Son, a remount of a Canadian play by Tetsuro Shigematsu that explores three generations in a tale of familial love, grief and joy. United Players, a non-professional company, opened with a dynamite production of The Last Wife, a look at the influence of Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife, on his three children who would grow up to become Elizabeth I, Bloody Mary and Edward VI. However, if none of these appeals to you, the Arts Club is the place you want to be.

Give or take, the Arts Club is offering on its three stages – the Stanley, the Granville Island stage and the BMO stage – about a dozen comedies/musical comedies/musicals with only two dramas: Red Velvet and Choir Boys, which also has a strong musical component. It must be a daunting challenge to keep all three stages afloat, but where’s the meat? In the words of the carnivorous plant that is at the centre of Little Shop of Horrors, “Feed me. Feed me. Feed. Me.”

In a nutshell: the Skid Row flower shop, owned by Mr. Mushnik (Ashley Wright)  is about to go belly-up until Seymour, his hapless employee, hybridizes an exotic plant at home during a total eclipse and brings it to work. It goes in the window, folks love it and start coming in, buying flowers by the armload. The catch? The plant is a carnivore and needs blood. Seymour, lovesick for beautiful Audrey – the other shop employee – dubs the plant Audrey Two and keeps the plant’s bloodlust a secret. But not for long. All those bandages on all those fingers. And then someone goes missing. Uh oh.

There’s plenty of talent on the stage: Synthia Yusuf, as Audrey, is a wide-eyed beauty with a big voice that defies her sapling-slim frame. She will break your heart when she sings about finding the right guy and getting away from Skid Row:

“A matchbox of our own
A fence of real chain link,
A grill out on the patio
Disposal in the sink
A washer and a dryer and an ironing machine
In a tract house that we share
Somewhere that’s green.”

She needs to get away her bullying, dentist boyfriend, Orin (John Ullyatt), a sort of Elvis x James Dean, who rocks the place with “Dentist”.

Tenaj Williams is a sweet, appealing Seymour and anyone who has ever killed a plant will relate to Seymour’s “Grow for Me” with its list of all the things he has done for Audrey Two: dirt, potash, sunshine, pruning, grow lights, supplements – that is, until he realizes he might have to open a vein.

But, naturally, the real star of this show is Audrey Two who grows from a potted plant early on to a stage-filling monster demanding – with a huge opening mouth fringed with fangs – “Feed me. Feed me. Feed. Me.” The puppeteer credited in the program is Braydon Dowler-Coltman but at curtain it looked like a whole team was inside Audrey Two.  As ‘properties’ go, this one’s a doozy: velvet and silk, pompoms and petals.

Yes, it’s super silly. It started as a 60s film, was adapted for the stage in the 80s as a musical and won the Laurence Olivier prize for Best Muiscal musical in 1983.  If you’re in the mood for totally irrelevant silliness,  this show’s for you.

Me? Like plants that fail to perform for me, I’d put Little Shop of Horrors outside for the winter and wish it, “Goodbye. Good luck.”