Catch ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ this weekend
As a kid, I vaguely remember seeing a VHS tape (or was it a VCD?) of “Little Shop of Horrors” at home—but I honestly can’t recall watching it. I must have, probably, because some of the songs have always been familiar, as well as Rick Moranis’ character.
Still, when it came to the plot, I had very little idea about it, which made seeing its recent staging by The Sandbox Collective at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater quite the entertaining and enlightening experience for me, when I caught the show last Saturday, headlined by Red Atadero as Seymour Krelborn, and talented theater debutante Sue Ramirez as Audrey. (See sidebar on this page.)
It was hard not to admire the beautiful production—especially the vocal chops of the entire cast (Julia Serad as the horrific alien plant Audrey II, and Abi Sulit, Paula Paguio, and Mikee Baskiñas as The Street Urchins—bravo!).
But the bite of the story was the hard lesson at the end; a timeless one, which, in my opinion, should be retold every so often because it’s one humanity so easily forgets (I know it’s a classic by now, but just in case you have yet to catch the play or movie, no spoilers!).
It appears that director Toff de Venecia shares the same sentiment, as he pointed out to us that “it had been a while” since Filipino audiences took a walk down Skid Row—it was in 2004 when Repertory Philippines staged a professional production, and, 13 years since De Venecia’s first stab at directing it, when it was shown in a small theater at the Ateneo de Manila University. It was that experience, he says, that led him to once again explore the material this year for Sandbox Collective.
Traditional puppetry
“While this is not necessarily a new intellectual property that we are introducing to Filipino audiences, I suppose we wanted to change the way it’s typically staged. The plant, for example, is usually done through traditional puppetry, through all of its stages and inceptions. When we did it back in college, obviously we didn’t have the resources to have our puppet fabricated, and the venue also wasn’t developed for it—so we changed it up, and we decided to rely on an actor to be able to portray this character,” De Venecia says.
“So I think since then, a lot of other global productions have also employed this, and we wanted to do that here, but then also combine it with puppetry, because the show is known for that.”
His love of the story, ultimately, really relies on how it remains relatable, even to today’s younger audiences.
“It’s a love story, there’s a moral dilemma, and then there’s the temptation of man. It’s nice seeing that quintessential everyman onstage go through these dilemmas, because, in a way, it also makes us reflect on the things that we had to do to be able to acquire the things that we wish for or dream of,” he says. “It’s something that really and deeply resonates with a lot of the audiences.”
Catch the last shows (for now!) of Sandbox Collective’s “Little Shop of Horrors” this weekend at the Globe Auditorium, Maybank Performing Arts Theater in BGC.
