Kimmy's Garden

Tonight I enjoyed the Scona High School’s presentation of the play Little Shop of Horrors. The greeting by the ushers was warm and inviting, and the seats were great. We sat in the middle, front, reserved area. Ha! Spoiled rotten. There were many seats in the first rows of the balconies called the “appartments” with laundry hanging to dry. Neat. First thing that I noticed after finding our seats was the fantastic set. The flooring, the decor of the flower shop, and especially the brick walls of the neighbourhood of Skid Row. The spray paint and graffiti-like notes, garbage, out-of-order parking meter and and old horror movie posters glue-painted to the walls were a great addition to give the atmosphere of, well, a scary skid row.

There were several dancer-singers, the Doo-Wops, that really looked the part of troubled teens with nothing better to do than hang-out and gossip. Hmmm. Looked frightningly believable!! LOL They sat and sang on the main set, and as well, up in the balconies and up in the up-right and up-left stage. There was song surrounding us. BTW, the music was awesome. Really sets the mood, the music that is. I think that moving the singers around, especially up in the balconies made the people upstairs feel included as well, instead of being a person just sitting there looking down on all of the action. The singers must have had to boogy to get around, and get changed. Great job.

As for the Doo-Wops, I thought that the three song-trio leaders, Courtney, Gianna, and especially Merran, were excellent leaders. It must have been a challenge not only for the Doo-Wops to get their troops organized physically and with the timing of the singing, but a special hats-off to the choreographers getting all those people on such a tiny stage to look well spaced-out and organized at the same time. Good use of space and timing. There was a feast for the eyes and ears!

Lead roles, Mr. Mushnik (Stefan), Audrey (Breanna), and Seymour (Matt D), were done very well. I especially liked the “will you be my son” part – the two young men really played well against each other. Could have had a bit more clear enunciation of the words while singing, but the whole scene seemed natural and believable – which is most important. Audrey was a fantastic singer, simply put.

OK, the puppet Audery II. How cool was that? I just wanted to run up and touch it, especially the baby one. Just wanted to cuddle it. And what was with the three flower-pot-girl-ballerinas. That was hilarious! They were so over the top, and worth every minute watching them. I liked the setting up of the “Someplace Green” song, with the indoor-outdoor carpet and chain link fence, and sombre lighting, while over to my right are three bizarre dancers who were super-happy prancing around. Interesting juxtaposition.

Great costumes. Great set, very well thought out. I hear that Eastglen gave the original set to Scona, and Scona spruced it up. So good to share and improve. Cool. I really liked how the one brick wall literally “turns” into the Dentist’s office. And the Dentist, I don’t even remember the Dentist’s name, but he did a good job of being baaaaaad. And somehow the crowd loves him best it seems. I find that fairly interesting as well. He is supposed to be a complete and inhumane bastard, yet everyone loves him. Cheers for him. Weird. So fun to get to play the bad guy.

The lighting was well done. Hardly anyone remembers the lighting crew. Lighting is so natural that we don’t usually notice how the colour and timing prepare the feeling for the scene. You know that its well done when you hardly notice the changes.

I loved every minute of it. Well done and thanks so much to Anne and Merran for having invited us. It was indeed and unforgetable evening of theatre. And I say to myself again: this was a High School play? My expectations blown out of the water…