Shabby ‘Little Shop’ Needs TLC

Legend has it that Roger Corman filmed Charles Griffin’s script of “Little Shop of Horrors” in two days in 1960.

Twenty-two years years later, composer-director Howard Ashman and lyricist Alan Menken adapted Griffin’s script into a spoofy, doo-wop style off-Broadway musical that critic Otis L. Guernsey Jr. termed “a very good thing in a small package.”

Four years later, Frank Oz adapted the musical adapted from the movie back into another movie, but critics fretted that Audrey II--the flesh-eating Venus’ flytrap that gets out of control in Mushnik’s skid row florist shop--was so realistic and scary it was no longer funny.

The lesson in all of this would seem to be that when it comes to something cheesy like “Little Shop,” stick to the cheese. But a revival taking root at the Excalibur Theatre sends the opposite message: If your stage production of “Little Shop” is too threadbare, be afraid, be very afraid.

The uncredited skid row set ribboned with chain-link fences looks dank enough, but the Menken score (under musical director Michael Sartor’s purview) is on tape, and the opening scene’s chorus girls in costumer Juli Askew’s glittery dresses are more motley than stunning.

Things settle a bit after this as we are introduced to nervous, nerdy Seymour (Erik Austin), an orphan taken in by Mushnik (Robert Grindlinger) to work in his shop opposite winsome, squeaky-voiced Audrey (Kristin Towers). The shop’s doing as well as a florist shop can do on skid row, but Seymour seems to have found the gimmick to drum up business--a fulsome Venus’ flytrap he has worked on that he dubs “Audrey II.”

In what Griffin and Corman likely meant as a sly metaphor for Hollywood producers, Audrey II brings in the cash, but it also starts eating people alive and ordering Seymour around with a simple, goofy directive: “Feed me!”

Its first big victim is Audrey’s abusive biker-dentist boyfriend Orin (Grant George), all the better for Seymour to finally snuggle up with Audrey. Yet, like certain studio moguls, Audrey II wants more and more. Ashman, in matching the cleverness of his lyrics, sticks to Griffin’s dark, paranoid ending--just the right touch during the Y2K fear frenzy.

“Little Shop” on stage has to be silly but not cheap. In the original production, such as the touring version that came to the Westwood Playhouse in the early ‘80s, Audrey II was campy and impressive, and we were sitting far enough from the stage not to notice the puppet mechanics.

At the much smaller Excalibur, we can see the handiwork manipulating Martin P. Robinson’s flesh-chomping puppet. Even worse, the voice of Curtis C. (singing Audrey II) is so distorted by the miking that it muffles most of Ashman’s ghoulishly funny lyrics.

The sure sign that director Sheila Guerrero has not cast with care is that some of the best voices (belonging to Jeff Witzke and Shane Bunda) appear in the show’s waning minutes, while Austin is still getting a handle on Seymour.

We don’t care about Seymour’s dilemma as we should, and George’s Orin isn’t the intimidating presence he should be. But Towers’ Audrey wins us over instantly with the ideal balance of peroxided insecurity and vocal command. Towers has what the rest of this show needs: A-movie skills with B-movie attitude.

“Little Shop of Horrors,” Excalibur Theatre, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 10. $12. (818) 760-7529. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.