Little Shop of Horrors review: Bord Gáis Energy Theatre's first homegrown show is a sure-footed take on the cult musical
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
★★★★☆
It's a rare piece of dramatic art that dispenses with every lead character by the curtain call, but Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's Little Shop of Horrors is unusual in many ways. With its unlikely cast of sadistic dentists, sidewalk bums, stoop-sitters and man-hungry plants, it situates itself firmly on the dark and shadowy side of the street. As the dumb but darling Audrey (Jacqueline Brunton, euphonious) puts it, 'You don't meet nice guys on Skid Row.'
Yet what about the bumbling botanist who sleeps under the counter at Mr Mushnik's Flower Shop? Seymour (David O'Reilly, endearing) may not have deep pockets, but he does have green fingers with which he can turn his tribute flytrap, Audrey II (voiced by Kenneth O'Regan), into gold. There is a Grimm lesson here worthy of any age-old fairy tale: where personal ambition is concerned, there are always sacrifices to be made.
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Dublin's biggest theatre is staging its first production. Will its Little Shop of Horrors pull off a coup?
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In this first, admirable home-grown production from Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, collaborating with Theatreworx, no such sacrifices are visible to the audience. Maree Kearns's sweeping Skid Row set spares us no grimy detail, with a revolving floor facilitating easy shifts between indoor and outdoor settings, including the blood-spattered horror show of Dr Orin's pleasure palace.
Performances too are very strong. Garry Mountaine's Mr Mushnik is part mensch, part schmuck, leaning into the klezmer cadences of Ya Never Know. Johnny Ward's Orin is a seedy comic tour de force. Playing the key collective role of the story-setting chorus, Ghaliah Conroy, Precious Abimbola and Aoife Dunne do more than justice to the dominating doo-wop rhythms of Menken's score.
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Little Shop of Horrors: David O'Reilly and Garry Mountaine
Little Shop of Horrors: Precious Abimbola, Ghaliah Conroy and Aoife Dunne
David Hayes, the production's musical director, maintains measured control over the shifting musical styles, although issues with sound levels and mics on opening night swallow some of O'Reilly's solo vocals.
Claire Tighe, directing, is sure-footed in her vision of the cult material, leaning firmly into its campest qualities, as Audrey II grows and gets hungrier and hungrier. Chris Corroon's puppetry does too. It goes for Jim Henson-style theatricality more than realism, which makes the dark denouement far more palatable.
Those schooled on Frank Oz's 1986 film may be surprised to realise that Somewhere That's Green has more than one interpretation, as John Gallagher's lurid lighting for the finale makes clear. But, following the logic of life and legends, it was never going to end any other way.
Little Shop of Horrors is at the
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre
, Dublin, until Saturday, August 9th
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