Little Shop of Horrors

In the basement of Mushnik's Skid Row florist's, weedy shop-boy Seymour pines for bubbly-blonde shop-girl Audrey. But the basement is also home to a strange and unusual plant, a growing, bloodthirsty demon determined to devour mankind. It's hard to pinpoint just what makes this surreal saga such a delight. There's the music, a wonderful doowop score from the off-Broadway hit based on Corman's 1960 cult classic. There's the antics of Second City veteran comedians (Murray, Candy, Belushi). There's Steve Martin as 'The Dentist', Audrey's biker-boyfriend, a happy-go-lucky sadist who nearly steals the show. And finally there's the plant, a 50-ft jiving, root-stomping, vegetable from whose 49-ft lips comes the voice of Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops. Though Frank Oz will be damned for changing the play's original ending - let them eat carrots - this wild and witty musical is great fun.