REVIEW: “Little Shop” and “Pirates Life” are lively fun
In many of their productions, the cast members of the Pickleville Playhouse almost fill the entire stage. In the musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” however, it is an overgrown Venus Flytrap that almost fills the stage.
But this plant, as it turns out, prefers to eat, and so it is left to the other Pickleville Playhouse actors to get all they can out of the little stage framed by a log cabin. And they do.
Derek Davis, playing experimental horticulturalist Seymour Krelborn, is delightful. With wide-eyed wonder he works through the ethical dilemmas of raising a plant that is more like a genie, with abilities to change his life. Davis, though only 18, is an old hand at the Playhouse and – directed by his mother – has the geeky nerd aspects of Seymour down cold.
Britanny Worley, playing Audrey, is a real treat. Her singing ability and ditsy blonde characterizations carry the day. With Jeremiah Harrison, who plays Mr. Mushnik, the trio have a great time with New York City and Polish accents.
Davis and Harrison do a great job with “Mushnik and Son,” and that well-paced duet is a highlight.
Worley shines in “Somewhere That’s Green” and other solo opportunities, showing excellent dynamics in her voice. All characters wore microphones, and Worley did a good job of easing up just enough to make her projection perfect.
The trio of Crystal, Chiffon and Ronnette (Sharah Knowles, Whitney Davis and Sharli King), background singers throughout the play, work well together, though their solos were less harsh and more listenable than some of their trios.
And it is hard to ignore Audrey II, the center of everyone’s attention, voiced by T.J. Davis.
Hard, also, to ignore how much fun this “Little Shop of Horrors” is.
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A good, old, traditional summer melodrama, “A Pirate’s Life” has a cast of dozens and a live three-piece band to keep the music moving. The script and music were penned by T.J. Davis, star of last season’s “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat” – and part of the family that built the playhouse, now in its 31st year.
The script is as corny as a good melodrama needs to be (“Marriage is not just a word; it’s also a sentence”) and Davis even sneaks in a “savvy” or two, to keep up with Capt. Jack Sparrow of current film fame.
The lively music is all over the map, with a couple of shoo-bop numbers and even a rousing gospel-choral piece, possibly the best in the show. The live music, led by pianist Ralph Degn, injects a good deal of life.
“A Pirate’s Life” takes a crew of bumbling pirates into the Ozarks to find a treasure chest that a retired pirate took with him to his home (yes, it’s a stretch, just like homespun melodramas should be). It is here he finds sweet Nell (Whitney Stoker, who is about to be married to the town hero, Donald Sneddy (Parker Jeppesen). And Nell knows the location of the treasure.
Captain Pucebeard – all the other good colors were taken, see? – wants to make a mess of the marriage plans and find the treasure. Pucebeard is played in perfect villain style by Neal Ackerman. At his side, Pucebeard has blond bombshell Kitchy LaKoo (Sharl King) and bumbling Lumber (Brigham Moore), who gets to be the biggest ham in the show.
Jeppesen is a real find in his first season at the playhouse and is very comfortable onstage. King has wonderful diction and presence.
The freshly penned lyrics, however, are sometimes lost in duets and choral numbers, though King’s projection is an exception. And audience members will hardly keep up with the plentiful but seamless costume changes.
All in all, a pirate’s life, at least the one found on the shores of Bear Lake, is not so bad after all.
“LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS,” “A PIRATE’S LIFE,” PICKLEVILLE PLAYHOUSE, Garden City, through Sept. 1 (435-946-2918). Optional preshow dinners also available.