A horrible force is taking over society – ruthless, self-serving, hateful. Who can escape its terrifying grasp for power and mayhem?
Don’t worry, this isn’t a column about politics.
We’re writing about theater here – nice, safe, air-conditioned, yet full of monsters just the same – one in Center City at the Academy of Music, and the other in the ‘burbs at People’s Light in Malvern.
At the Academy, we’ve got a voracious sand worm controlled by the mostly evil Beetlejuice, in the very popular, long-running comedy/horror Broadway musical by the same name. And in Malvern, it’s Audrey 2, a rapacious plant with an insatiable appetite for human blood in “Little Shop of Horrors,” another Broadway hit in the comedy/horror genre.
Both fun, both scary, and both involving very awesome stage effects to produce the monsters.
“There’s a certain part of human nature that can be explored when you are talking about this genre,” said Amina Robinson, an assistant theater professor at Temple University and busy Philly theater scene director, who isn’t involved in the People’s production but has worked on “Little Shop” in the past.
“You have some otherworldly creature coming to destroy and impinge on humans and our lives,” she said. “You can really illuminate things about humans and society that doesn’t feel heavy but still makes its point.”
(Photo by Matthew Murphy)
Based on a 1988 film starring Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice” centers on the story of young Lydia, who feels ignored by her father after her mother’s recent death. An old demon, Beetlejuice, shows up and mocks the idea of living to the fullest, since death is the only outcome.
There’s a lot of passing between death and life in this play with ghosts and double-crossing and foul play at every turn. Part of the Ensemble Art’s Broadway series of touring shows, “Beetlejuice” includes some cast members with local roots – Michael Biren from Cherry Hill, an ensemble member who also serves as Beetlejuice’s understudy, and Marc Ginsburg, of Philadelphia, another Beetlejuice understudy.
Set in a flower shop, “Little Shop of Horrors” stars a bloodthirsty monster/plant and examines dark paths taken in the name of power and desire.
“Power, economic status, the rich vs. the poor, the evils that can be found in fame and celebrity — all of those really deep themes exist in that musical,” Robinson said about “Little Shop.”
“It becomes a means of entertainment that allows these conversations to happen in a very different way. It can make those conversations easier to engage in when you are talking about an alien plant as opposed to a real person,” she said.
‘Tempted to do awful things’
Not far from People’s Light in Malvern, Valerie Joyce, the chair of Villanova University’s theatre and studio art department, teaches classes in musical theater. Like Robinson, she has also directed “Little Shop” in the past – more than once.
Part of its appeal, she said, is that “Little Shop” allows us to playfully explore the dark side of our own natures “because we’re always going to be tempted to do awful things to get what we want.”
In “Little Shop,” the audience becomes complicit in the evil, not unhappy that an abusive boyfriend gets what he deserves when he’s devoured by the bloodthirsty plant. But how will the plant’s keeper satisfy its demand for more and more blood? What compromises will he make? What compromises will the audiences approve?
“The style is darker than typical musical theater,” Joyce said.
Musical comedies follow a formula – boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Not so in horror/comedies, she explained.
“The comedy is ironic and satiric and often uses camp, so it is bigger than life and broader than life. This frees up characters to behave in ways and audiences to have expectations in ways that are not normal.”
And for the theater makers — directors, designers, props people, costumers — to have a lot of fun.
“In our version, we wanted to take an entirely new take on the plant,” said “Little Shop” director Molly Rosa Houlahan at People’s Light. “There’s a traditional image that has been used – big, green Venus flytrap with the big mouth attached to it. It is a voiceover voicing an enormous puppet for the plant.”
“Our performer is a hybrid alien plant/human – a vibrant magenta purple orchid,” Houlahan said. “The designers took inspiration from a pitcher plant, which starts as a little bud, but grows a gaping maw where flies get caught in the plant’s toxic juice. Another inspiration? The angler fish, with its giant jaw and nasty-looking teeth.”
Soon the plant has hips, a head and a torso. “Our choreographer did research into how plants move and that got incorporated,” Houlahan said.
“It’s quite big because it has to eat whole humans,” she said. “It’s a really exciting design challenge.”
That kind of challenge, Houlahan said, is baked into the idea of the horror-comedy musical.
“It gives you liberty, because camp and sincerity go hand-in-hand,” she said. “It allows you to be really elevated with the amount of energy, design and color that you can experiment with. It’s really a broad permission slip that you are given.”
FYI
“Little Shop of Horrors,” through Aug. 3, People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, 610-644-3500.
“Beetlejuice,” July 29-Aug. 3, Ensemble Art’s Broadway Series, Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-893-1999.