MR. JORDAN GOES TO "LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS"
The return of Jeremy Jordan to the star “Seymour” spotlight in Little Shop of Horrors, Off Broadway at the Westside Theatre, is a delightfully big deal. Jordan, who played the show post-Pandemic in 2021, can do just about anything as a musical theater performer at this point; he has also built himself a nice television career, first in Smash and lately in Supergirl. Opting to play Seymour in August in New York on West 43rd off 9th Avenue when he could have been playing … well, nothing at all in Hollywood, what with the strikes and all… but easily some bigger Broadway hot slot, is a near-heroic act. Rather than occupy the safe, hunky heartthrob high ground, Jordan is bringing his Aw-Shucks good looks and celestial singing voice to bear on the nerdiest male lead in musical theater history (more or less. Interesting 10-minute diversion: Name the five nerdiest leading guy roles of all time. But I digress.)
As my daughters have regularly reminded me, since he first hit their radar in Newsies, Jeremy Jordan is a star. He has a following, who buy tickets and show up, as I witnessed the other night at the Westside Theatre, where that lovely little house was packed with a crowd howling for blood. And not just Jeremy Jordan’s. One of the neat things about his presence in Little Shop just now is his reflected starlight that beautifully illuminates his superb castmates, top to bottom. The Jordan-ites in attendance roared for each and every one of them. Deservedly.
I am so old that I saw the original downtown production of Little Shop in 1982 at the Orpheum Theatre on Second Avenue with the inimitable Ellen Greene as the battered, but unbowed and still belting, Audrey. I have since seen a few of the many Little Shop revivals. Also, the movie, of course, which preserved Greene’s performance on celluloid, while also giving us a deliciously deranged Steve Martin as the noxious, nitrous oxide-swilling dentist, Orin Scrivello.
None of these iterations of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s breakthrough little musical overshadows the current Jeremy Jordan-led revival. This production, directed by Michael Mayer, is as good as it gets. Anything less than absolute devotion to the delectable deviancy of Little Shop of Horrors, anything less than pinpoint attention to its details and contours, and the piece can easily molder and decompose. You need passion, you need big singing and decisive acting chops. Little Shop does not kid around. Technically it is deceptively demanding.
As Audrey, Joy Woods did not knock Ellen Greene out of my head, but she did sing the hell out of “Suddenly Seymour,” Greene’s signature tour-de-force number, and, perhaps more importantly, synched beautifully with the rhythms and essence of Jeremy Jordan’s performance. The pair actually gave off heat. Mr. Mushnik, owner of the flower shop that employs both Seymour and Audrey, and births the carnivorous super plant, Audrey II, was, this night, played by an understudy, Kevin Pariseau, who did everything he needed to do with brio, including his exit into Audrey’s maw. As “The Urchins,” Little Shop’s Girl Group Greek chorus, D’Kaylah Unique Whitley, Tiffany Renee Thompson and Khadija Sankoh, were hilarious and vocally sleek. And, as Orin the degenerate dentist — plus a host of doubled subsidiary weirdos and crackpots — Bryce Pinkham damn near stole the show.
But not quite. In all of his Jerry Lewis-Nutty Professor geekiness, Jordan was still a nerd-God. He sang like one. He flopped around like one. And he sure as heck kissed like one, dipping Ms. Joy at the knee. The audience went absolutely wild. I joined with them. You can too, but only until September 17, when Mr. Jordan will be on his way. I mean, he has places to go.