(Click the links to read Hero/Villain Pairing #5 and #4)
This play is awesome, and everyone should see it. The movie is less awesome, due to studio interference, but will make pictures considerably easier to come by for me. Both involve human-eating plants from outer space. That’s about all I can say before one of these:
****Spoiler Alert****
Okay. It’s a tragedy, one of my favorites. At least, the stage version without the forced happy ending is.
For those who don’t know, here’s how it goes:
Seymour is an awkward, insecure orphan who’s been raised and used as unpaid help all his life by the owner of a struggling florist shop. He’s good with plants, and through some convoluted circumstances, he acquires a specimen never before seen (on earth), names it Audrey II after a coworker he has a crush on, and figures out how to keep it alive.
This play is awesome, and everyone should see it. The movie is less awesome, due to studio interference, but will make pictures considerably easier to come by for me. Both involve human-eating plants from outer space. That’s about all I can say before one of these:
****Spoiler Alert****
Okay. It’s a tragedy, one of my favorites. At least, the stage version without the forced happy ending is.
For those who don’t know, here’s how it goes:
Seymour is an awkward, insecure orphan who’s been raised and used as unpaid help all his life by the owner of a struggling florist shop. He’s good with plants, and through some convoluted circumstances, he acquires a specimen never before seen (on earth), names it Audrey II after a coworker he has a crush on, and figures out how to keep it alive.
With blood is how.
Well, not at first. It starts small,
…nursing blood off of Seymour himself, bringing new business into the shop with its novelty value and winning Seymour the approval he’s always craved. But it gets bigger, and hungrier.
When it gets big enough to talk, and too big to live off of Seymour, it points out how much easier it’s already made his life and promises to get him anything he wants if he’ll keep bringing it fresh blood.
Something about this deal seems like a bad idea.
This would be an excellent moment to cut and run… but the first plant food candidate makes it so damn easy.
The original Audrey’s boyfriend… well, he isn’t the kind of guy you feel like rescuing when you see him accidentally asphyxiating while getting high on nitrous oxide. Which of course is exactly what happens. And why waste the body?
Then Seymour’s boss finds out and tries to blackmail him. Oh well, he was a terrible guardian anyway.
Then Seymour’s boss finds out and tries to blackmail him. Oh well, he was a terrible guardian anyway.
Seymour does get Audrey, and fame and fortune as a celebrity gardener, just the way Audrey II promised, but by the time he realizes that Audrey II is planning to infest and conquer the world and decides he can’t take anymore, the plant’s already gotten big and strong enough to devour people whole. Seymour swears to stop feeding it, so it lures the human Audrey close enough and kills her for itself.
Then we get one of my favorite hero/villain confrontations of all time. At least, in the play we do.
Seymour takes the cleaver to Audrey II, realizes he can’t make a dent in the tough outer husk, and jumps in its mouth to hack it apart from the inside. There’s a tense silence… and then Audrey II swallows and spits the cleaver out.
Then we get one of my favorite hero/villain confrontations of all time. At least, in the play we do.
Seymour takes the cleaver to Audrey II, realizes he can’t make a dent in the tough outer husk, and jumps in its mouth to hack it apart from the inside. There’s a tense silence… and then Audrey II swallows and spits the cleaver out.
This is exactly as self-satisfied as a plant smirk can be.
Then the invading plant species gets the final musical number to take over the world.
In some ways, there’s an almost Frankenstein’s monster quality to the relationship between Seymour and Audrey II as well. Audrey II wouldn’t be alive without Seymour. He could destroy it at any time while it’s little, but he figures out how to keep it alive for the sake of his ambitions, and everything it does is ultimately his fault.
In some ways, there’s an almost Frankenstein’s monster quality to the relationship between Seymour and Audrey II as well. Audrey II wouldn’t be alive without Seymour. He could destroy it at any time while it’s little, but he figures out how to keep it alive for the sake of his ambitions, and everything it does is ultimately his fault.
And like Frankenstein's monster, this is what it does.
Unlike Frankenstein’s monster, though, Audrey II is a self-assured and expertly manipulative villain from the very beginning. It’s the monster rolled together with Lady Macbeth. Seymour and Audrey II spend most of the play together, dependent on each other, Audrey II for blood, Seymour for the recognition and success he’s so desperate for.
Audrey II does everything it can to keep him dependent, to keep him from noticing that the human Audrey loved him before he was a success, that he’s smart enough to get a better job, that he could make a life for himself without cheating if only he thought so himself.
They’re as close as parts of one psyche. Audrey II is the devil on Seymour’s shoulder, the self-doubt necessary to cause the snowballing, it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time tragic series of events. It’s the worst part of him, and in the end, in the most literal way, it consumes him.
Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!
Audrey II does everything it can to keep him dependent, to keep him from noticing that the human Audrey loved him before he was a success, that he’s smart enough to get a better job, that he could make a life for himself without cheating if only he thought so himself.
They’re as close as parts of one psyche. Audrey II is the devil on Seymour’s shoulder, the self-doubt necessary to cause the snowballing, it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time tragic series of events. It’s the worst part of him, and in the end, in the most literal way, it consumes him.
Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!
