No matter what experiences you’ve had with a female friend – or significant other – however mean or nasty they’ve been, they’ve got nothing on Audrey. She’s pitiless, soulless, and thirsty -- a plant who drinks the blood of anyone offending her nebbish-like owner, Seymour Krelbourne, proprietor of the Little Shop of Horrors.
The musical version of the schlock-horror classic opens next month at South Simcoe Theatre, and director Richard Varty knows enough about the lives this show has lived since Roger Corman first trotted it out in 1960 as a low-budget film (with a young Jack Nicholson as a bit player) to compare the two.
“I think Corman's (and I guess, Moranis') Seymour was an underdog that you wanted to root for (no pun intended),” he told BarrieToday, with a reference to Rick Moranis, who started in the 1986 movie of the musical, which also featured John Candy, Steve Martin and Bill Murray, directed by Frank Oz (Miss Piggy himself).
“In the stage version, he's more of a have-not who tries to make the best of a bad situation. (But) while I believe he acts with the most noble of intentions – Seymour is not a hero.”
The songs to the show were penned by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who gave us the score to Beauty and the Beast, and Varty refuses to pick any one song as his favourite.
“I've grown to love them all. I suppose the ones that stand out to me are Git It, Somewhere That's Green and, of course, the iconic Prologue.”
Varty also recognizes that the property comes with baggage of its own.
“The challenge is to find opportunities to focus on that are supported by the script. Staging a production like a shot-for-shot film adaptation is a waste of a performer's talents – (so) why not take this deliciously absurd show and make it our own?”
Varty adds he feels fortunate that the cast has bought into his concept for the show and run with it.
“It's a wonderful feeling when everyone is excited about the production and I certainly hope the patrons are as well. It's hard to decide who constitutes as a principal character when every one of them owns the stage at one point or another.”
South Simcoe Theatre’s production of Little Shop of Horrors opens Thursday, Apr. 6, running through Sunday, Apr. 23. For more information, click here.
