PERFORMING ARTS REVIEW Collaboration Brings Horror(s) to Longview

Posted @ Aug. 25 2011 10:04AM by Susan - arts-ent

Little Shop of Horrors

By Ed Phillips
Last night marked the opening of the “Little Shop of Horrors” at the Wallenberg Auditorium on the campus of Lower Columbia Community College. The play is derived from the classic B movies made by Roger Corman in 1960 and 1986 (the musical version). The local production lives up to the camp movie classics in all respects.
I attended at the play with my wife and three grandsons, ages 6, 9 and 12. Think of us as a critical mass. The three grandsons were quite laudatory, giving the play four out of a possible five stars and stating that, given the opportunity, they would take their classes to the play. High praise indeed from kids at a hypercritical age. My wife and I also thoroughly enjoyed the play as we had enjoyed the movie musical in a previous life. It is family entertainment with only a modest dollop of “adult” content.
The play was previewed in The Daily News on Thursday, the 18th of August by Tom Paulu and he gave a very thorough review of the plot (Boy meets plant, plant is alien, boy makes Faustian bargain with plant to feed it people in exchange for material gain and success with girl.) Obviously it can’t end well but has a great musical finish leading up to the curtain call.
Let’s be frank; for a musical to succeed it must meet the basic requirement that the leads can, in fact, sing as well as act. That requirement is met in this production. All can more than carry a tune, and there are some very fine voices among the major characters as well as among the chorus members. Philip Andrew Kennedy as Mushnik and Stephen Hamilton as Orin were standouts among an exceptional cast. Dylan Disch as Seymour was the perfect fit as the nebbish lead. But let me stress again: all the singers were very good or better. The musical style is mainly doo-wop with some classical Broadway musical stylings. The direction and staging are first-rate and the opening night audience was very appreciative.
The grandsons did register a minor complaint. Some of the lyrics in the chorus numbers and by Audry2 (the ravenous plant) were unintelligible. This seems to be an endemic problem with local musicals and I don’t know the source of the problem. Otherwise the musical numbers and the choreography were quite entertaining.
The play runs through the 27th at the Wollenberg Auditorium at the LCC Rose Center, with performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings (Aug. 25, 26, 27_ and a 2PM matinee on the 28th. Tickets are a bargain at $10 general admission, $8 for seniors and kids. LCC students are admitted free. What a deal for a date or a family outing!

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Ed Phillips, shown here with his three grandsons, who collaborated on his review, lives in Kalama. He is a frequent CRR Arts Reviewer and always brings his literary and artistic tastes and world experience to bear, along with a dry wit.