THEATER REVIEWS : ‘Little Shop’ Stocks Some Strong Performances, Catchy Tunes : The popular musical is highlighted by the performance of a fast-growing plant that has a taste for human blood.

Legendary in some circles as a 1960 low-budget movie that was filmed in two days, “The Little Shop of Horrors,” a science-fiction update of the Faust legend, was later turned into an off-Broadway musical and then a big-budget movie.

Closing the Santa Susana Repertory Company’s first season in the new Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, “Little Shop of Horrors” (without the “The”) is a first-rate production of the 1982 off-Broadway musical that played for more than 2,000 performances. Composer and librettist Alan Menken and Howard Ashman went on to write scores for the Disney animated features, “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.”

The musical is popular with high school and college theater departments. Still, it’s well worth seeing as performed by a professional, adult company in a comfortable, intimate environment.

Glenn Rosenblum stars as nebbishy Seymour Krelborn, working in a flower shop in a New York Skid Row neighborhood, run by Mr. Mushnik (Joseph Cardinale). There’s a gleam in Seymour’s eye for Audrey (Kirsten Benton), who also works in the shop but is otherwise involved romantically--in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello (Jeff Austin)--and regards Seymour only as a rather sweet friend.

Discovering a strange and unidentifiable plant, Seymour brings it back to the shop and names it Audrey II. Before long, Seymour’s luck is changing--business at the shop is much improved and his relationship with Audrey is looking much better.

But at what price? Audrey II, it seems, has a taste for blood. Fresh, human blood.

Rosenblum plays Krelborn in a way that won’t surprise anybody who’s seen Rick Moranis in the 1986 film; Benton’s irresistible Audrey is a dead ringer physically and vocally for the character created off-Broadway and reprised in the ’86 film by Ellen Greene; and Cardinale’s Mushnik is alternately irascible and tender.

For many in the audience, the most startling performances are by Austin (as Scrivello and in several less flashy, minor roles) and by Audrey II itself, a creation guided by puppeteer Michael Earl and voiced by Anthony Kameil. Watching Audrey grow, increasingly threatening, is a wonder: Even though you know how it’s done, you’ll still marvel at Earl’s skill.

The music, too, is often quite good; never more so than the early, scene-establishing “Skid Row,” sung by the trio of Chiffon, Crystal and Ronnette (Lisa LaShawn, Lar’Juanette Williams and Terry Norman) who serve as a sort of Greek chorus throughout the show.

Details

* WHAT: “Little Shop of Horrors.”

* WHEN: Friday and Saturday nights at 8:30, Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30. Closes May 21.

* WHERE: Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza Forum Theatre, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd.

* HOW MUCH: General admission, $22.50; students and seniors, $20.

* CALL: Civic Arts Plaza box office: 449-ARTS (2787).