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This could rightly be attributed to many things, such as the ongoing popularity of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's smash-hit 1982 musical based on Roger Corman's 1960 movie, its charmingly boppy (but never oppressively pastichey mid-century pop score), or the concert's having a legitimate Hollywood heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal in the cast. But the thing that matters most here, and what catapults the evening from respectable to legendary, is the all-consuming presence of its original star, Ellen Greene. As anyone with longstanding familiarity with Little Shop (even a single viewing of the 1986 film version will do) knows, Greene's achievement was not a tiny one. Though the meat of the story as set forth in Ashman's book and lyrics lies elsewhere—with Skid Row florist Seymour Krelborn, who discovers that his mysterious new plan can bring him his greatest desires only when he feeds it blood—Greene unearthed a genuinely heartbreaking pathos around the edges. As Seymour's coworker (and chronic crush) Audrey, an over-peroxided waif who's battered and belittled by her sadistic dentist boyfriend, Greene highlighted the theme of the show: the dueling necessity and danger of the dreams we all need to keep us alive. Neither Greene's instincts nor her talent have dimmed over the last three decades. She's still eminently touching, making us feel each bruise and insult inflicted on her, and inspiring us to care whether she can escape from the cycle of helplessness in which she believes she belongs. We see how the respect and love Seymour shows her transforms her from the inside out, building self-worth brick by brick, and this is an edifying example to us of the control we have over ourselves even when we don't realize it.
Everything she does is unique. Sure, there are those delectably definitive line readings in that untraceable urban accent ("Now, isn't that... bizth-awwrre?"; "Sorry, doc-tuh, doc-tuh, doc-tuh! Sor-ree, doc-tuh!"). But there's also an expert singer, whose now-rougher instrument nonetheless remains pure, and a daring interpreter; listen how she flips between chest and head voices in ways that don't initially jibe with Menken's tunes, but convey a pointedly scattered mindset that couldn't be more right for Audrey. (My favorite example is in the Act II opener, "Call Back in the Morning," which is typically fairly disposable, but here pulses with a fervor and necessity I have not encountered before.) And Greene's damsel-in-distress poses, guttural hip grinding, and Brechtian body contortions cry out that this is a woman who's more than the melodrama she inhabits: she's forever at war with who and what she can be. Thousands of words could be expended on everything that Greene does (and I suspect they will be before the end of the week), but what surrounds her should not be shortchanged. Director Dick Scanlan and musical director Chris Fenwick have brought the show back to its, ahem, roots, doing the full original book and score, with an eye toward the celebratory. (The night concludes with a film strip documenting the show's monumental statistics.) The result is something that is wholly authentic, but closer to a gala than the well-rounded Encores! mountings than have become the norm. Scenic designer Donyale Werle has gone simple, deploying not much more than a scummy Skid Row backdrop, rustled up a few green chairs, and wraps some flower chains around music stands; and costume designer Clint Ramos pulls out green socks and a fur jacket to represent the plant, Audrey II, as it's played first by child actor Anwar Kareem and later by the big-voiced adult Eddie Cooper. The show gets along without the puppets and frantic musical staging (Patricia Wilcox's straightforward choreography is fine), though they do inject a kitschy playfulness that Scanlan has otherwise downplayed.
The bigger surprise, at least to me, is Taran Killam. For the track that includes dentist Orin Scrivello (D.D.S.), the narrator, and a host of other minor characters, casting a Saturday Night Live quick-change artist makes perfect sense, and Killam delineates each personality with precise comic verve that extends to every inch of his body. But he's also a vocal powerhouse who's every bit as rewarding to listen to as watch. Joe Grifasi, as the flower shop owner Mr. Mushnik, acts decently, if without much specificity (and his singing is at best adequate); Cooper is absolutely solid, if not world-changing as Audrey II; and Tracy Nicole Chapman, Marva Hicks, and Ramona Keller (who all played the original Radio in the Tony Kushner/Jeanine Tesori musical Caroline, or Change) bring likable girl-group stylings, if not much else, to the singing street urchins they play. And they're clearly all having a wonderful time that manifested itself even during flubs (Gyllenhaal blew an entire verse of "Closed for Renovations," but handled it genially). A good time is very much one goal of Little Shop of Horrors, even if it does possess some more serious implications. (It strikes me as at once a reaction to the malaise-choked Carter administration that questions the unchecked capitalist optimism of the early Reagan years, while also paying Technicolor homage to Corman's B-movies as a counter to the shadowy excesses of 1970s Broadway.) And, assuming you can still score a ticket, you'll have one at this concert. What's even more arresting is how Greene proves that a good time needn't also be a shallow one. Nothing she does is throwaway, nothing is regurgitated, and certainly none of it is forgettable. There's a reason, after all, people still talk about the original Little Shop of Horrors after 30 years. What Greene is doing at Encores! ensures that those lucky enough to witness it will be justifiably rhapsodizing just as much about it 30 years from now. Hers is a singular creation, a stunningly luminous star turn that bucks the conventional wisdom that what we need in musicals today are supremely gifted, cookie-cutter technicians. Give me Greene's wonderfully real weirdness any day.
Little Shop of Horrors
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