This afternoon I went to a matinee session of Little Shop of Horrors at the QPAC Playhouse. It was excellent and I’d really recommend it.
I love Little Shop, it’s one of my all-time favourite musicals.
My introduction to it was when I was quite young, my parents had the theatrical cut of the 1986 film on VHS. I watched it several times, ’til I could sing all the songs by heart. It wasn’t until many years later that I finally saw a stage production of it and fell in love all over again. I remember it well; I was surprised and delighted at the ‘new’ (read: original) ending, which I liked much better than the ending in the theatrical cut of the film.
Today I also got to introduce another to the stage version, a lovely lady who is a big fan of the film version like I had been but who had never seen it on stage before.
After the show, when we came home, I put on the director’s cut of the film — which I had obtained recently but not ever actually watched — and we watched it all again. I was really struck by how much of the dialog in the film is lifted directly from the stage script with little to no changes. It indicates the quality of the writing, I guess.
Screenshot from the 1986 film. All rights belong to their owners.
I mentioned that I had never actually seen the director’s cut ending of the film until tonight. It was excellent — we watched the theatrical cut ending on Youtube separately afterwards to compare, and the theatrical ending just doesn’t compare. I can understand why the original ending wasn’t used for the theatrical release… ‘everyone dies and then the world ends’ was an ending that wasn’t saleable to the general public in the 80s, but today we’re much more accepting of that sort of thing.
There are some scenes and songs that I think work better in the film than on stage. The Dentist song works much better in the film than the times I’ve seen it done on stage, due to the different set and the customers. The scene with Seymour coming to kill Orin works better in the film, too. And of course, you get the lovely ending with building-sized plant monsters tearing the city apart. Still, with musicals I find live performances are just better for some reason.
Little Shop of Horrors is just one of those musicals that I can see myself going to see again and again, whenever I get the chance to. It is and will remain one of my favourites.
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No writing progress at all today, first time I’ve missed my 500 words. I’ve resolved to catch back up by Sunday.
