To borrow
shamelessly from fellow Inkpotter Boon Chan's review,
Little Shop of Horrors is a tale of a Faustian bargain with
a horticultural twist. Nerdy Seymour (Hossan Leong) buys and tends to
a unique breed of orchid that blossoms into an extraordinary plant,
which he affectionately names "Audrey II", after his co-worker (Denise
Tan), also the girl he is besotted with. Bringing fame and fortune to
the previously "God and customer forsaken shop" he works in, he is hailed
as a botanical genius, his deepest desires fulfilled... but at what
costs? With satirical edginess, Little Shop of Horrors explores
the delicate balance of good and evil through a florist's epic tussle
with a "bloodthirsty mutant evil orchid".
However, the only indication that Dream Academy's latest offering would
be a local adaptation of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's 1982 tragicomic
musical was in its title, Little Shop of Horrors. Everything
else, from the huge banner at Raffles Plaza to the glossy posters on
the walls of Victoria theatre led me to expect an irreverent comedy
starring the Dim Sum dollies. And much like the way these rambunctious
chilli padis eclipsed the actual drama in the advertisements, they also
upstaged the main characters in the musical itself.
Spoofing chao ah-lians, over-made Singapore girls, buxom nurses and
nuns with OTT habits, the Dollies enjoyed themselves lustily in a variety
of supporting parts as "kaypoh-chee storytellers". While all of them
were wildly personable, Pam Oei was the dolly that shone, disappearing
under the skin of her caricatures with effervescent wit and the most
au naturel of accents. At the height of their (Singaporean) crowd-pleaser
thrills, a hunched Oei scrunched up her face in sadistic glee as she
jabbed at a ticketing machine before issuing her car park mancik riposte,
"Sorry, press alreadi" to a disgruntled motorcyclist. Also doubling
as the chorus, the dollies captured the sexy, close-harmony earnestness
of Menken's 1960s pastiche score and the doo-wop melodies that sneaked
into the back of your head and stayed there.
But the dollies' success also proved to be ironic, accentuating the
skin of blandness enveloping the musical. Sure, under Glen Goei's slick
direction, the cast had agreeable voices and synthetically precise comic
timing. But a little more vulgarity might have been welcomed. This version
of Little Shop was sanded to such a smooth finish that it hardly
bit, nicked or pricked, lacking the oomph and eccentricity that made
the 1982 off-Broadway musical and Frank Oz's 1986 movie adaptation cult
hits.
As meek geek Seymour, Hossan Leong had neither the vocal power nor
prowess to flesh out the emotional range of his character. At times,
he was overpowered by the live band, and as the lead, strained to assert
authority over most of the songs, no thanks to the Dollies' powerful,
robust chorus. This vocal fatigue seemed to spill into other aspects
of his performance and I often wondered whether his disheveled, flustered
look in the latter half of the play was in character or a result of
genuine burnout after a strenuous run of sixteen shows.
Dave "Electrico" Tan was effective as the voice Audrey II, but far
too synthetic and never quite gritty enough to embody one of the most
monstrous egos in theatre. His "Feed me FEED ME!" seemed more like a
well-practised growl on playback than a famished plea asserting its
stranglehold over the puny resolve of Seymour, and the musical at large.
However, the proverbial limbs of Audrey II, Frankie Yeo and Michael
Chong, were faultless, portraying a very convincing evil orchid with
perfectly timed puppeteering. Throughout Little Shop, they
kept Audrey II's menacing sepals in rhythm with the rumbling beat of
its hunger pangs and cries; and even the piteous wilting of mini Audrey
II at the beginning was a delightful touch.
The supporting cast was generally competent; and while Lim Yu-Beng's
Dr. Orin Chew was personable enough, he failed to add any sort of edgy
dimension to his uniformly maniacal rendering of the role. More ominously
for Lim, comparisons were inevitably drawn between his performance and
Steve Martin's virtuosic depiction in Frank Oz's 1986 adaptation - a
comparison he could ill-afford. Sean Worrall was efficient as Mr. Mushnik,
Seymour's money-whoring boss, even if the dash of Singaporean wit clashed
awkwardly with this essentially Western expatriate character.
Only a wide-eyed Denise Tan managed to hold her own against the dollies
on stage, successfully walking the tightrope between Audrey's Stepford
wife ambition (she dreams of living in a neighbourhood with the "same
little gardens at the front and same little patios at the back") and
self-sacrificing heroics. Endearingly campy yet valiant and vulnerable,
she spoofs the traditional role of the heroine without compromising
her character's genuine heroism.
But what united the uneven performances of the cast was this Little
Shop's woeful knack for suffusing local humour at every turn of
the play. It was more weird than funny to see Mushnik, a Caucasian immigrant,
spouting essentially Singaporean phrases like "You don't need a date
with that guy. You need Medisave." and the cringe-worthy "with the right
marketing, (my shop) could be better than kaya toast!". Comic relevance
is obviously not Tan Kheng Hua's strong suit: the local jokes should
have been left to the dollies; these flat one-liners amounted to overkill.
And why try so hard to contextualize the musical when it proves, in
other aspects, to be fine as it is? Tan Ju Meng's eclectic set design
encapsulated the rough urban insolence of the production's setting on
Skid Row (without the needless embellishment of "Lorong", please.).
The haunting mix of purple and blue lighting, paired with the smoky
effects, conferred a sinister aura on Tan's gritty aesthetic.
Such painstaking efforts could also have been better placed in regulating
the perplexing pace of the musical, which climaxed and ended too abruptly.
Ultimately, I was on the edge of my seat not to see who Audrey II would
consume next or the unfolding of Seymour's dismal fate, but for the
inimitable Dollies' next spoof. In the horticultural spirit of the show,
the dollies were mighty orchids consuming the drama and devouring the
rest of the cast. The most rapturous of applause was reserved for them,
and rightly so - it was this trio of street urchins that propped up
this little shop. |
"Ultimately, I was on the edge of my seat not to see who Audrey
II would consume next or the unfolding of Seymour's dismal fate, but
for the inimitable Dollies' next spoof."
Credits
Book and Lyrics: Howard Ashman
Music: Alan Menken
Director: Glen Goei
Executive Producer: Selena Tan
Producer: Tan Kheng Hua
Cast: Selena Tan, Pam Oei, Emma Yong, Hossan Leong, Denise Tan, Lim
Yu-Beng, Sean Worrall, Dave Tan and Robin Goh
Puppeteers: Frankie Yeo and Michael Chong
Music Director: John Lee
Choreographer: Erich Edralin
Set Designer: Tan Ju Meng
Lighting Designer: Yo Shao Ann
Sound Designer: Shah Tahir
Puppet Design: Mascots and Puppets Specialists
Costume Designers: Frederick
Lee and Moe Kasim
Hair Designer: Ashley Lim
Makeup Designer: MAC
Vocal Coach: Amanda Colliver
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