Little Shop of Horrors, based on Roger Corman's1960 film, can be an amusing little musical. In the wrong hands, this delicate black comedy can be excruciatingly painful to watch. The current production at Covedale Performing Arts Center falls between these two extremes.
The play begins as two young workers at Mushnik's Flower Shop, Audrey and Seymour, are about to lose their jobs, the result of hard times on Skid Row. Seymour has discovered a strange new carnivorous plant, however, which he names Audrey II. It eventually saves the business -- but not without gruesome botanical complications, including Audrey's boyfriend, the sadistic dentist Orin. Rodger Pille plays the role with broad strokes, but he's just not mean enough to enjoy his cruelty in a hysterically killer way. The role needs to be funnier. (Pille adroitly plays several small roles later in the play.)
Megan Osborne Williams has the right look for Audrey, but her performance is forced and stiff. Her speaking voice is often under-projected, although her singing improved as the evening progressed. By the soaring "Suddenly Seymour" number, she was in full emotional throttle.
Unfortunately, Williams and her Seymour, played by Drew Bowen, might as well live on two different planets. Bowen is animated and cute, but there is not one iota of chemistry between them. The audience has little to hang onto when the lovers barely make eye contact.
On the up side, Paul Eisenmann's Mushnik, the proprietor of the Skid Row shop, is delightful -- fully engaged and entirely believable. But it's the show's chorus, a Doo-Wop girl trio (Shonda Fowler, Annie Kalahurka and Kimberly Nicole) who hold the evening together. Their singing, acting and dancing is exuberant and precise, providing Little Shop of Horrors with a periodic uplift. And the band is spot on. Grade: C+
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, presented by the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts, continues through Nov. 18.
