You're right Sheek, we have to wait till Brantley weighs in but I'm shocked at how spot on Mandlebaum's review is. He really nailed all of the problems and our sentiments to a "t" (without the vitriolic delivery, of course). Maybe now that a professional has pretty much echoed our viewpoints, we won't be so reviled after all.
Of course I know THAT. I was making reference to Mandelbaum's reference to the size of the house. Of course a show can lose it's charm from production to production. But from house to house? I don't think so.
Broadwaygirl, I think Grand Motel means that the house is too big for the show. Something I think I mentioned in my original review. It did lose it's charm. That's what most lacking with the current production and the current performances. There's no *charm*! In this case, size does matter.
I think it has charm, but of course that's a different story....If you happen to think that this particular production of the show does not have the charm it should, blame it on the director, the actors, the designers, but certainly NOT the house. Maybe you would've enjoyed it more if you sat in the front row then, haha.
Well, It wasn't much further back than the first row. Look, If I sound like I'm gloating, I'm not. She was just miscast. It happens all the time. Big deal, she'll be fine. We can blame the casting people and the producers and the director, if you'd like. I'm more than fine with that. They're *supposed* to know better. Kerry's just a hired hand.
as JRB_ACTOR took me to task once, i am not a huge fan of this show, but understand it on the basis of charming performances and energy. i saw it last week in previews, and though the set is amazing and the performances generally good (i liked Mushnik better than Mandelbaum did, but also found the urchins too "hard" even if they sing well mostly, with some screaming and yelling---notable on their TODAY show appearance). In terms of "enlarging" a small show, or scaling up from off to B'way, what i missed were what seemed to be obvious choices: retaining the trio's costume changes from the film (which keyed into the escapist fantasies of Audrey and Seymour, whose personalities they constantly comment on), a dancier opening number and DENTIST song which traveled more like the movie did, a hydraulic that brought the characters (and not the puppet) closer to us in the larger auditorium, etcetera. i'm not sure what is going wrong there, but the whole thing was leaving me wanting. There have been so many good regional recreations of the original, i think some revisionary conceptualization to make it fresh would have been welcome (even if that contradicts my first few examples). i'm not sure how to fix this one, but it may run, and i do like Sills and Foster and Butler as performers. i maintain after seeing AVENUE Q that were i casting this LSOH for B'way, i'd seek out very funny (but with a different logic) and very good singers (like the two leads of Q who play two roles each; or comic singing marquee names like Ana Gastmeyer/Brittany Murphy or even Martin Short/Wayne Brady). Then, if the leads were unknown---and Hunter/Foster mostly are if you are outside NYC---i'd cycle bigger national names through the easier roles of the Dentist and Mushnik, perhaps even letting other ensemble members play the multi-roles later that the dead Dentist performer usually does. That way we'd get a slightly fresher show in an opulent set, names to bring in tourists, and still something new for those of us who have seen the clones already as well as love the film (remember, GREASE in revival took a different approach as to not compete with the very popular film, not a bad idea. Not that i'd want LITTLE SHOP to be as glib as GREASE revival generated into...)
Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys.
"I guarantee that we'll have tough
times. I guarantee that at some point
one or both of us will want to get out.
But I also guarantee that if I don't
ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for
the rest of my life..."
Michael Kuchwara from the "Associated Press" gives a luke warm review of Kerry Butlers performance as well.
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Critic
NEW YORK - Some 20 years after its initial off-Broadway triumph, can a blood-lusting, man-eating plant find happiness in the big leagues of Broadway?
Yes indeed, if the leafy creature happens to be Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors," one of the more indestructible musicals of the 1980s.
This spiffy revival, which opened Thursday, has been visually enhanced to fill the stage of the Virginia Theatre, one of Broadway's least hospitable theaters. In the process, Audrey II has grown to be quite a behemoth — and a little scarier.
Yet outside of those enlargements, don't expect any startling revisions in director Jerry Zaks' musical, which he resurrected and mostly recast after a Florida tryout floundered earlier this year.
"Little Shop" has always been a small show, a good-natured yet cheeky concoction that exudes a brash buoyancy — a necessary ingredient for any musical comedy worth its sass.
Creators Howard Ashman (book and lyrics) and Alan Menken (music) didn't take their source material — Roger Corman (news)'s classic 1960 film — too seriously, and that irreverence paid off. Shades of "Hairspray" (which "Little Shop" proceeded by two decades), their pop score bubbles merrily; it manages to send up and pay homage to the music of an era when father knew best and mom was a cross between Betty Crocker and Donna Reed (news).
For those who came in late, our tale is set in a failing Skid Row flower shop, owned by the schlumpy Mr. Mushnik. Its hero is the sad-sack orphan Seymour, a shop employee who cultivates an unusual plant that happens to thrive on human flesh.
Seymour pines for Mushnik's ditsy salesgirl, Audrey, the namesake for his peculiar piece of flora. Audrey is a blond bombshell of the Marilyn Monroe (news) variety, a woman who has a weakness for men who treat her wrong, particularly a masochistic, motorcycle-riding dentist.
Audrey II grows. Boy, does it, thanks to the outsized, outrageous new designs by Martin P. Robinson. The plant, which also acquires a voice (a booming Michael Leon-Wooley), is nourished first by drops of blood from Seymour's bandage-covered fingers and later from victims provided by the hapless Seymour. His Faustian bargain with the plant ensures not only success for the shop but hope for his relationship with Audrey.
Zaks has cast the show with care.
Hunter Foster possesses a delightful Howdy Doody earnestness that gives Seymour a likability that pushes beyond the character's comic-strip confines. Plus, Foster (who last starred on Broadway in "Urinetown") is a more than efficient song-and-dance man.
Then there's Kerry Butler (news), who has the unenviable job of slipping into the tight blouses and even tighter pedal pushers once worn by the incomparable Ellen Greene in the original production. If not as innately funny as Greene, Butler does just fine, particularly during a wistful rendition of Audrey's big solo "Somewhere That's Green."
As Mushnik, Rob Bartlett seems to be channeling Zero Mostel (news) (particularly Mostel playing Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof"), but the choice pays off.
The hardest working actor on stage — and the one with the quickest costume changes — is Douglas Sills (news) since he portrays a parade of characters, including the demented dentist. They are all done with hammy expertise
The three ladies of the chorus — DeQuina Moore, Trisha Jeffrey and Carla J. Hargrove — epitomize the girl groups of the early '60s, and choreographer Kathleen Marshall has given them the grooviest of moves.
Designer Scott Pask's looming tenements have a menacing quality, an otherworldly feel just right for this spooky story.
If the production is tinged with a little melancholy for theater buffs, that's because the show is a sobering reminder that Ashman died of AIDS (news - web sites) in 1991. After "Little Shop," he and Menken collaborated on Disney animated films, giving us at least one classic, "Beauty and the Beast," which eventually found its way to Broadway in a lavish stage version.
Still, those Disney movies and "Little Shop" provide a potent legacy, not to mention allowing audiences to again get reacquainted with that formidable stage presence known as Audrey II.
i'd very much like to discover Ms. Sorvino's, as well as Ms. Tomei's, singing and dancing. Has anyone seen them do so live? the other possible Audrey that comes to mind for me is in (or about to go into) NINE...Jenna Elfman. Krakowski is not a bad idea either. Please don't take that to mean i don't like Kerry Butler, i do think she's a fine actress. Somehow it didn't deliver on the Ellen Greene level, however (and i'm sorry you don't like Greene's voice, VOICEANTH, but kindly don't repeat how it makes your ears hurt. Kindly remember, many have said the same or worse about your favorite "Sondheim-singing-dog", the singular Merm).
Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys.
"I guarantee that we'll have tough
times. I guarantee that at some point
one or both of us will want to get out.
But I also guarantee that if I don't
ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for
the rest of my life..."
Mira can sing(though she'd beg to differ), spent an evening with her family and many others at a benefit, she would bring both star quality and an amazing emotional and sexual energy to Audrey, ya gotta believe Orin sees something "dirty" in her.
You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium's
Liable to walk upon the scene
And Felicia Finley gave a kickass audition as Audrey, BUT it was when the original creative team was mounting it, Connie Grappo's words were to the effect, "Do it like Elle Greene"....there is a way to create an Audrey that's different, yet, follow the original design somewhat.
You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium's
Liable to walk upon the scene
OK see no one is saying that Kerry is bad they keep comparing to Ellen Greene. Now Those are very tuff shoes to fill but they aren't coming flat out and saying Kerry is bad they are saying she's good and talented witch she is. Then go on to say not as good as Ellen but she is the only one they are doing that to.
Then there's Kerry Butler (news), who has the unenviable job of slipping into the tight blouses and even tighter pedal pushers once worn by the incomparable Ellen Greene in the original production. If not as innately funny as Greene, Butler does just fine, particularly during a wistful rendition of Audrey's big solo "Somewhere That's Green."
The talented Kerry Butler correctly refuses to copy Greene, and provides firm renditions of "Somewhere That's Green" (still one of the finest character lyrics from any recent musical) and "Suddenly Seymour
I do have to agree with the first artical it does get a lot of Laughs when she's dying but thats nopt really Kerry's falt. It's direction and other things.
Everyone on thies boads hates me anyway becuas I'm always backing Kerry so why stop now.
Grace: My love for you is like this scar (points to elbow) ulgy but permanent!
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