‘Little Shop of Horrors’ fueled by Faust and fertilizer

In 1960, Charles B. Griffith spent two days churning out nearly 100 pages of dialogue for a film about a talking, flesh-eating plant from outer space.

Movie director Roger Corman matched the warp-speed pace by shooting the movie in two days for a paltry $30,000. Of course, “The Little Shop of Horrors” became a cult classic and spun off a musical version that has since been produced from Broadway to Singapore.

So much for laboring over every word, and bazillion-dollar budgets.

Those interested in discovery the amazing, and often hilarious, alchemy that has made “Little Shop of Horrors” an enduring stage favorite for decades will get the opportunity on Thursday. That evening, at 7:30 p.m., Heritage Theatre Festival will present the musical in the University of Virginia’s Culbreth Theatre.

Geno Carr has acted in two previous productions of the play and is in the director’s seat for this offering. He believes the show’s popularity has something to do with characters an audience can care for, and the power of a story — albeit zany — well told.

“I’ve gone back and watched the movie several times, and you can tell it was really quickly thrown together,” Carr said during a recent telephone interview. “But it’s such an interesting story.

“It sort of harkens back to the Faustian legend of making a deal with the devil to get what you want. Once it became a musical, the novelty of that became all the more interesting.

“For one thing, how are they going to make this man-eating plant come alive on stage? The way we bring the plant to life is certainly something worth seeing.”

The plant, Audrey II, has an insatiable thirst for human blood and is a central character in the play. Seymour Krelborn, a young man who works in a run-down florist shop, discovers the plant and ends up helping it sate its appetite for the vital fluid.

Audrey II flourishes and grows from a sickly potted plant into a menacing man-size entity. Creators of the original play quickly seized upon the idea of using puppets as the ideal way to portray the plant in its ever-changing manifestations.

“The puppets we have are based on the puppets used in the 2003 Broadway production,” Carr said. “They were created and built by puppeteers who worked on that production.

“These are really great, amazing puppets and I think people are going to be very excited to see how it comes to life on stage.

“This show is deceptive, because it has a pretty small cast of eight people involved.

“At the same time, it’s on this grand scale with these huge puppets and these characters who are living in extraordinary, big circumstances. One of the challenges was just making sure we tell the story and don’t get lost in the novelty of the plants.”

Scene-stealing singing plants notwithstanding, Carr said the play at its heart is a love story between Seymour and Audrey, after whom the plant was named. And, of course, there’s nothing like a good musical score to move the emotions and love affair along.

“I would not say this is a rock musical in the vein of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ ” Carr offered. “But it’s got a pop sensibility, and it captures a lot of the sounds of the music from the late 1950s and early ’60s.

“It’s got a Motown feel to it, as well as the girl-group sound. In that sense, it does tend to lean a little more toward pop, but it still has a strong musical theater sensibility.

“It’s really a fun show. In this economic climate, people want to get away and have some fun and escape a little bit. This show certainly does that by taking you to a whole different world.”

Heritage Theatre Festival’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through July 25, plus July 27 and 30 and Aug. 4, 7 and 8.

Tickets are $27, $23 for those 60 and older and UVa faculty and staff members. $15 students.

Tickets are available online at http://www.uvahtf.org, at the Heritage box office or by calling 924-3376.

Details

“Little Shop of Horrors”

Heritage Theatre Festival

7:30 p.m. Thursday; runs through Aug. 8 in rotating repertory

Culbreth Theatre

$27; $23 UVa faculty and staff members; $15 students

http://www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu

http://www.uvahtf.org  924-3376