Review: Grow For Seymour at the Belmont's LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

Harold Ashman and Alan Menken created the highest grossing Off-Broadway musical in history by adapting a cult Roger Corman movie and adding doo-wop music. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS became the small show with everything: comedy, horror (a little around the edges), romance, strange and interesting flytraps at a florist's shop, a girl doo-wop trio, and a maniacal dentist. From a reputation as Jack Nicholson's first on-screen role as a dentist's patient in the movie, it developed a new one as being a totally fun show as the musical.

At the Belmont, director Rene Staub infuses the production with much of the wit of the original Off-Broadway production. Mushnik, the florist, ably played by Robert Eisenhour, delivers the Yiddishkeit truly required for a downtrodden Jewish florist to prove that he doesn't just have a Jewish name. This Mushnik is plainly Tevye's grandson, his feet planted firmly in a deep, all-encompassing "oy gevalt" that goes back to another time. It's a small delight that underpins the entire florist's shop setting.

Wesley Hemmann, formerly Luther Billis in the Belmont's SOUTH PACIFIC, fills the stage with an evil twist on that same cunning as Orin the Dentist, villain and nitrous oxide junkie with a heart of lead. He's a delight in his main song, the infamous and hysterically funny "Dentist!"

But of course it's Seymour and Audrey, musical theatre's mismatched Romeo and Juliet, that we care about. Matthew Walsh and Lindy Keefe, both new to the Belmont, are a lovely down-at-the-heels pair. Seymour is naive and clumsy, but here he's clearly not stupid. Audrey is funny, but also beautiful in her way and marvelously tragic.

Oh. Of course. Audrey II. The largest and most cunning of all plants, hiding her secret alien background and her mission, is voiced by Ben Eisenhour. She's growing, she's growling, and appeased only by fresh blood. You could not have more fun with this part than Eisenhour does, and the audience couldn't enjoy it more.

A show that manages to connect giant monsters, alien invasions, romance, the pitfalls of greed, and a little underlying Cold War paranoia with music and comedy is a recipe for hilarity. Catch this one at the Belmont.

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