People-eating pod grows in stature
Audrey II, that blood-thirsty little plant from Mushnick’s Flower Shop, just keeps growing.
Roger Corman introduced the pushy, people-eating plant in his 1960 B-film “Little Shop of Horrors.” Twenty years later, Audrey II popped up in a campy off-Broadway musical of the same name that blossomed into the 1986 movie version starring Rick Moranis and Steve Martin. Pretty soon, there were little Audrey II clones at community theaters and high school stages all over the country.
But the plant really burst out of the pot in the 2003 Broadway version, with a people-eating pod that grows as big as a small car and tentacles that reach out over the audience.
“It’s on a much grander scale than it’s ever been done on stage before,” said Jonathan Rayson, who portrays the plant’s caretaker, Seymour, in the Broadway tour coming to Lansing’s Wharton Center this week. In September, the show kicks off the Broadway Theatre Guild season in Grand Rapids.
The tour started out trying to duplicate Broadway’s mechanical monster in New York, but it weighed several tons and some theater stages couldn’t support it.
“It was a different contraption, more mechanical, not as personable,” Rayson said. “We lost some of the scale, but we gained nuance and attitude.”
The touring Audrey II includes the impressive head used on Broadway, capable of housing a puppeteer with a television monitor so he can respond to what’s happening on stage like any other actor.
“The plant’s the star of the show,” Rayson said.