Ellen Greene: 'Little Shop of Horrors' legacy keeps Howard Ashman alive
by Fred Topel · UPILOS ANGELES, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Ellen Greene said the legacy of Little Shop of Horrors keeps the late writer and lyricist Howard Ashman alive. Greene is touring with 40th anniversary screenings of the 1986 film adaptation beginning Friday through January.
Ashman and songwriter Alan Menken wrote the original stage musical based on the 1960 Roger Corman movie. Ashman also wrote the screenplay adaptation. He died in 1991 while working on Aladdin.
In a recent phone interview with UPI, Greene said the 40th anniversary tour and continued stage performances keep Ashman's memory alive.
"I'm just glad that Little Shop is still alive and kicking," Greene, 75, said. "Every time it's performed or someone loves it or sees the music or someone plays Audrey in their high school, my Howard lives."
Greene originated the role of Audrey in the 1982 off-Broadway production. Audrey works in Mr. Mushnik's (Vincent Gardenia) flower shop with Seymour (Rick Moranis), who obtains a plant from space that feeds on human blood. He names the plant Audrey II.
When the staging of Audrey's ballad "Somewhere That's Green" changed in the movie adaptation, Greene recalls Ashman reassuring her.
"He said, 'Ellen, when you sing the last bars of 'Somewhere That's Green' through the window and the camera pans back and sees the tenement building with broken windows surrounding you, it'll elicit the same feeling,'" Greene said. "When someone believed in you and I believed in him, you can do anything."
Greene wore a platinum blonde wig on stage and in the film. She pitched Ashman her take on the character, written as "a sweet brunette on the page."
"I wanted her to be ripe enough to fall off a tree," Greene said. "I wanted her in high heels teetering. I put her in a racy cocktail dress because she thought it was good taste."
The blonde hair became Audrey's "soft crown," Greene said. Once Ashman approved the look, Audrey's voice emerged.
"Then Audreyisms started happening," Greene said. "The squeak came out of a performance with Lee Wilkof. I was just overwhelmed with something he said and that's when the squeak was born."
Wilkof played Seymour in that original production. Film director Frank Oz considered eliminating the squeak until he saw it get a reaction with the crew.
"The reason it's in the film is because Freddie Cooper, who is the cameraman who filmed Out of Africa, said, 'Sir, I think it's funny,'" she said.
Audrey speaks in a breathy whisper, but belts out her songs.
"When you can no longer talk, that's when you sing," Greene said. "When you can no longer sing, that's when you dance."
In addition to "Somewhere That's Green," Audrey's "I Want" song above having a family in a suburban house, she also sings the duet "Suddenly Seymour."
"When she sings 'Suddenly Seymour,' you see the woman," Greene said. "You see the sexual woman."
Audrey is in a relationship with an abusive dentist (Steve Martin). Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. serves as the first victim whose death is easy for Seymour to justify, but Greene understood why Greene stayed with him.
"I looked at it from the inside of a person who sees the good in everyone but they have this low self-esteem," Greene said. "But she has hope. She never loses that child, that dream."
When released in 1986, fans of the stage edition noted that the film gave Audrey and Seymour a happy ending. In 2012, Warner Home Video released the director's cut in which Oz had filmed the show's tragic ending and an additional sequence in which giant plants took over the world.
Test audiences were not prepared for Little Shop to end with Seymour feeding Audrey to Audrey II and then being eaten himself. Greene said she understood the reaction when she delivered her line, "When I die, which should be very shortly" after suffering fatal bites from Audrey II.
"In the play, I look at the audience during the death scene and I go, 'Which should be very shortly,' and it's funny and silly and sort of relieves the tension," Greene said. "In the film, I'm looking at Rick and I say it very intimately."
Greene still stands by the theatrical ending. The new ending also reinforced Ashman's legacy.
"I was so proud of Howard and Alan that they came up [in] two weeks during the summer with a new ending," Greene said. "It's sweet and adorable. It's lovely. We reshot for two weeks."
Forty years later, Greene is still singing "Somewhere That's Greene." She will perform it live at the screenings.
"I sing every day and warm up," Greene said. "I have to get used to performing because I can get very shy and I have sometimes stage fright."