To preface: this is extremely rambly and purely my unedited stream of consciousness thoughts. I needed to get it outta me.

I hate the revival so much unfortunately. I’ll be the first to admit that I have seen little of it and I have done precious little research about it. So maybe I’m simply uninformed! But listen here. My biggest gripe with it is that the whole thing is disgustingly sterile. From the lighting to the costumes to the set design to their Audrey II. The whole thing feels so dull and grey. Which prompts me to wonder really simply why that is?? What is the purpose? Why turn such a cartoony and bold show into this muted gray sludge.? There's a lack of grime to the whole show that really just takes me out of it. I’m also just super biased towards the designs of the 2003 revival and the movie. But like Jesus Christ with a show as bizarre and campy as Little Shop, trying to ground it in some kind of realism just makes all the campiness fall completely flat. The costumes really bug me because they’re the most bland and simplistic out of everything. Like I genuinely wonder if any research or thought was even put in. My biggest pet peeve with costuming in any theatre production is when they don’t look like the character would actually wear them. And this show is incredibly guilty of that in my opinion. I mean the dirt on Seymours shirt looks like it was smeared on in a rush before he had to go on.

My second biggest gripe is with the casting. I understand that to sell tickets they need to cast the big name actors. BUT JESUS CHRIST!! The casting of Seymour is what pisses me off the most. Mainly because I can’t stand when shows choose to cast these tall handsome twinky actors to play Seymour. I don't care how good they are at singing. In my opinion Seymour isn’t even a very vocally challenging role. Casting an attractive actor as Seymour undermines his entire character to me. THE whole point is that he's grubby, weird, poor, and unattractive. That's the entire context to why he gets manipulated by Audrey II. That is the entire reason that Orin is his foil (Orin is tall, attractive, and rich). That is the entire context to why he assumes that Audrey won’t love him if he isn’t rich and famous. BECAUSE HE HAS NOTHING ELSE GOING FOR HIM!!!! Casting an attractive actor to play Seymour takes me out of the show!! Does “still that Seymour’s a cutie….. Well if not he’s got inner beauty” MEAN NOTHING TO YOU PEOPLE!!!!!! Seymour Krelborn is supposed to be kind of ugly okay. From what I've seen the best option they’ve had for Seymour so far for this revival was Rob McClure. I also don't HATE Jeremy Jordan (although I think his Seymour is a little too horny for my tastes). In general though my all time favorite Seymour is Josh Lamon from the American Musical Theatre of San Jose's 2008 production [also one of my favorite Little Shop productions in general]. Here's the other thing. As much as I love Christian Borle. I HATE his Orin. I find that few actors really get Orin right. And maybe I'm just biased towards Steve Martin who knows. But it's like no actor has figured out a good way to deliver any of his lines and it ends up just sounding so unnatural it takes me out of the show. You could also argue that little of the dialogue in this show is written in a way that sounds natural but for some reason with Orin it's especially awkward. And I know there's a way to make his dialogue not sound awkward because guess what. Steve Martin did it. And it was great.

On a lighter note, I do really enjoy the urchins and the overall design of the urchins. They actually feel like early 60s teenagers! Which I love. I love when Little Shop productions lean super heavily into the early 60s period for the show I think its an era you don’t really see too often portrayed in movies or tv although maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. I think popular media tends to lean either super 50s or super mid to late 60s.

To conclude: Little Shop is a bizarre and campy show! I’d like to keep it that way! I’m not entirely opposed to other interpretations or designs for the show. But I think the most popular current production of the show being this soulless is. Well. disappointing.