I'm sure my parents would be disappointed to learn that all the formative years of being forced to watch musicals led to me really not liking musicals. "But the culture..." Yes, maybe I'd be a better person gagging my way through "My Fair Lady", but life is cruel and life without musicals will have to do. As much beauty, humanity, and vulnerability can be found in them, you'll find me choosing network security or programming tutorials a refreshing, preferred alternative. West Side System.out.println("OMG No").
Little Shop of Horrors is maybe one of the few I can handle. There's enough campiness and deliberate messing with the idea of a musical that I'm able to ride above my dislike of the genre. If you take the musical part away (trust me, I did this in my head), LSOH is a pretty grisly tale.
I'm probably not giving much away for you self-proclaimed musical lovers. There's woman-beating, sadism, alien invasion conspiracy (and reality), a kind of multi-species vampirism, and, of course, dentistry. All kinds of horror. All the good guys lose in the end, while ecstatically singing and dancing to their own demise. Finally, capitalism makes its unsurprising entrance and we're left with destruction of the US because of abject consumerism and clever marketing. The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Audrey 2. Some days, I'm ok with that. Steve Martin channeling his inner Blue Velvet was also entertaining, and horrifying, upstaged by Bill Murray, who just seems like he'd really like that sort of thing. musical or not.
OK, I admit, I liked the 3 black singers who acted as conscience and story-teller throughout. Harbingers of doom can sing all they want. [insert unexpected musical number here]. All in all, Little Shop of Horrors is the one musical I can turn to where reality can meet expectation.
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