Audrey II, the famous Jim Henson-designed Venus flytrap, is setting up shop in the Norris University Center’s Louis Room beginning today for the Northwestern Arts Alliance’s production of the play “Little Shop of Horrors.”
The show, in which the protagonist discovers a Venus flytrap with a craving for fresh blood, will feature the original off-Broadway prop of the first stages of the plant.
“After seeing it last night, it’s going to be very cool and it’s going to make a lot of people feel very uncomfortable, which actually works very well for the show,” said Brandon Harrington, the show’s business producer. “It’s very cool looking and very creepy.”
Harrington, a Communication junior, works for Broadway in Chicago, and said he borrowed the prop from his boss Eileen LaCario, Broadway in Chicago’s vice president for marketing. Her husband, Tony D’Angelo, a Chicago producer, did the first production of “Little Shop of Horrors” outside of New York.
The Venus flytrap had been sitting in a storage trailer, Harrington said.
Miranda Benner, a McCormick sophomore, said she designed and built a new plant for later parts of the show to be different from the old, cartoonish Audrey II from the movie version. Also, rather than using the traditional deep, male voice, Audrey II is voiced by Communication sophomore Kara Goldsmith.
“Audrey II is supposed to be central and seductive, and so I tried to incorporate that into the appearance by having it be something that looks more like a flower that then devours people rather than a Venus flytrap,” Benner said.
That darker, sexual theme carries through the production. This isn’t the “Little Shop of Horrors” people might know, show director Michael Holtzman said.
“I want to put up the ‘Little Shop’ that everybody loves, not the ‘Little Shop’ that everybody knows,” the Communication junior said. “To me, what was really important was taking a look at what the story really is, which is actually very dark.”
Harrington said the show touches on some serious issues behind the fun and glamour.
“Yes, it’s campy and over-the-top when it needs to be, but … our protagonist murders someone at the end of Act One,” he said. “And that’s a very real thing. … He’s willing to kill people in order to get himself a better life.”
Holtzman read through the script and saw a clear distinction between the caricatures and the characters, he said.
“A caricature is someone who doesn’t have any emotional depth, whereas we’re surrounded by characters,” he said. “They still have real feelings and they’re really driving for something in their lives.”
Balancing the effort to make the audience laugh and reflect might be difficult, but that will hopefully be what sets their production apart, Holtzman said.
“That’s what we’re going for-making it dark and gritty while still letting it be fun and bright when it should be,” he said.
Harrington said audience members will be pleased with what they remember from their own “Little Shop of Horrors” experiences and the show’s alterations.
“Other than the fact that we might single-handedly get glitter banned from Norris, it is over-the-top and less is not more in this production,” he said. “You’re going to have a great time when you come see it. It is going to be fun and campy andhave its dark moments, but you’ll leave the Louis Room humming the title number.”
“Little Shop of Horrors” will run today through May 2. Tickets are on sale at the Norris Box Office and are $5 for full-time students and faculty, and $10 for the general public.[email protected]
