'Little Shop of Horrors' at Blank Canvas Delivers a Tasty Love Story

Little Shop of Horrors Credit: Photo Credit: Steve Wagner.

We all love being in love, right? As the song says, love makes the world go ’round. But then again, as Shakespeare mused, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Well, there’s love and music¬—not to mention a huge bump in the road—in Little Shop of Horrors now at Blank Canvas Theatre. And this version of the popular musical by Alan Menken (music) and Howard Ashman (book and lyrics) turns out to have one of the most satisfying love matches in recent memory.

Set in the 1960s and featuring music written in the style of rock and doo-wop, LSOH is a delight when done well. And this production directed by Patrick Ciamacco pushes all the right buttons, including the science fiction one.

Allie Darragh as Audrey and Zach Palumbo as Seymour are two performers who seem born to play the improbable lovers. Darragh is a blonde knockout (in more ways than one, thanks to her abusive boyfriend) and Palumbo is a short, thin gold-plated nerd of the first order. He’s such a dweeb, even mild-mannered grandmas in the audience will feel the urge to walk on stage and give him a wet willie.

As you know if you’ve seen any of the multitude of iterations of this play since it opened more than 40 years ago, the science fiction part is contributed by a Venus Flytrap plant that talks and insists on a diet of human blood, preferably warm. Named Audrey II by the smitten Seymour and voiced with delicious power by Darryl Lewis, the bodacious botanical bully landed on Earth during a solar eclipse and takes over Mushnik’s Flower Shop on Skid Row where Seymour and Audrey work for Mr. M.

In addition to the fast-growing veggie, the other obstacle to romance is the sadistic dentist Orin who prefers handcuffs to corsages when he picks up Audrey for a night out. It’s a juicy role that invites over-acting and Noah Hrbek delivers on that score.

All the scenes in the florist shop are held together by Brian Altman’s strong performance as the owner Mushnik. Sometimes he’s mensch, other times a shmuk. At least he’s not meshugah.

As you might imagine, the voracious appetite of Audrey II (manipulated in all its stages of growth by Masario Atkins) is satisfied along the way by ingesting lots of Seymour’s plasma. But when he’s almost drained, any bipedal blood sack will do.

In any musical the key songs need to be great, and in this show they are. Led by a “girl group” (Maria Maldonado, Africa Turner and Amani Green) the up-tempo “Downtown (Skid Row)” sets the tone early on. Then Darragh croons Audrey’s sweet tribute to the suburbs in her dream to live “Somewhere That’s Green” where she might actually have a real chain-link fence.

But the showstopper is the Act Two when Darragh and Palumbo combine forces with the other singers to nail “Suddenly Seymour,” a passionate love song where the doofus finally comes out on top. Ah, but wait. The happy ending is in question because, you guessed it, the plant is still hungry.

There are a couple wrinkles in the production, as Palumbo’s voice is at times swamped by the sound of the band and the drably costumed girl group isn’t as sassy and synched as it might be.

But those are small complaints. And once you look past the plant with a taste for “people tartare,” this Little Shop lands a tasty love story.

Little Shop of Horrors
Through Nov. 2 at Blank Canvas Theatre, 1305 W 78th St Suite 211, Cleveland, blankcanvastheatre.com.

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