Review: Snappy new ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ takes root in Chinatown

San Francisco’s Chinatown carries a unique spirit in the Bay Area. Taking in the lamps on Grant or a pastry on Waverly puts one in a time capsule of sorts. Old buildings and associations with doors adorning Chinese family names are iconic.

Seymour Krelborn finds no sentimentality in his celebrated neighborhood. His is a life of depending upon the generosity of others — meatloaf, water and a soft piece of floor is his own personal panacea. While a tourist may leave the enclave with a plethora of trinkets and fortune cookies, Seymour stays and hits the lights at the end of a lonely night, the darkness of his surroundings suggesting his dim future prospects.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” kicking off the company’s 52nd season, firmly moves the musical’s New York Skid Row setting and infuses the narrative with a fresh, regional spin that screams poetic justice and inclusivity with a deceptively small cast of nine. The concept is the brainchild of director Jeffrey Lo, informing the story with a palpable newness.

Seymour (Phil Wong) can’t seem to do anything right — flowers in pots are accidents waiting to happen. He constantly earns the ire of gruff, Filipino flower shop owner Mushnik (Lawrence-Michael C. Arias), but gains the sympathies of lovely Audrey (Sumi Yu). She is a young woman who secretly roots for Seymour, but outwardly is locked into a relationship with sadistic dentist Orin Scrivello (Nick Nakashima).

Seymour’s fortunes are seemingly set in stone, but with the purchase of a strange and interesting plant, that rock begins to show signs of crumbling. Seymour calls his new plant Audrey II for some blatantly obvious reasons, which brings in the first customer the shop has seen in some time. With a fresh $100 bill in the drawer, spirits are high, yet based on what Audrey II likes to eat, Seymour’s blood count is low. Greed and capitalism go into some brutal directions, Seymour forced to choose between all-encompassing fame or soul-sucking famine.

There are many elements of this new production that fall firmly in the striking category. The details that adorn Christopher Fitzer’s scenic design sparkle with certainty, greatly informing the surrounding action. Asian American touches glisten throughout, with portraits of Tim Lincecum, Jeremy Lin and Ed Lee on the walls, Gay pride and Filipino flags on the counter nearby.

The production stands tall on the skilled shoulders of Wong. What he gives is a mountain of vulnerability, nuance and discovery, a most excellent turn of one of the most unassuming male leads in the musical theater canon. Yu is a delight as the embattled Audrey, fusing so many aspects of joy into an impossible situation. Arias is a performer with a wildly expressive face, playing a charming villain with a sparkle in his eye. And Nakashima gets after some serious physical comedy in multiple roles, his Orin a deadly combination of hilarity and disturbance.

There is still some work to be done to fully harmonize the concept to the musical’s critical elements. While some songs are seamless within the conceptual framework, others have to work a bit harder to reckon with their new digs. “Somewhere That’s Green,” a song that beams within its simplistic desires, has a harder time connecting Donna Reed and 12-inch screens with a counter featuring a chip card reader and wireless landline telephones.

Still, the music is loaded with bangers. The sharp rhythm, blues, gospel and doo-wop sounds of the three street urchins Crystal (Naima Alakham), Chiffon (Alia Hodge) and Ronette (Lucca Troutman) are slick and sophisticated within Fumiko Bielefeldt’s striking costume plot — queens holding court with exuberant presence, choreographed slyly by William Thomas Hodgson. It’s also not hard to pick out the dazzling mystery of Audrey II’s voice by Katrina Lauren McGraw, radiating with a timbre where the influences of Joplin, Etta and Mahalia shine through. McGraw and Brandon Leland, as the Audrey II manipulator, have wonder synergy, Leland imbuing the puppet with impenetrable sass.

What Lo has done with his concept is open up a new line of inquiry into how to engage a classic. He proves that he can be trusted to invest and shift narratives that keep the integrity of an original on a modern stage, while fusing innovative elements, getting back thunderous returns.

Anytime you can combine a classic piece of theater, the beauty of Chinatown and the regal nature of the Filipino dance Tinikling into a musical, it’s easy to see that something special is going down.

David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and served as a juror for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Twitter/Mastodon: @davidjchavez.

‘LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS’

Book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken, based on the film by Roger Corman, presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley

Through: Dec. 24

Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes, with an intermission

Tickets: $30-$95; www.theatreworks.org