‘Little Shop of Horrors’ opens Friday at Harlingen Performing Arts Conservatory

HARLINGEN — The plant from outer space.

The very mention of such a pairing conjures images of strange movies like “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” and “Forbidden Planet.”

But this story takes place in the “Little Shop of Horrors” at the Harlingen Performing Arts Conservatory, where it will open Friday.

“I’m enjoying it so much,” said Julia Belmonte, dressed in the garish green and red colors of the alien plant known as Audrey 2.

“I’m so happy to be a part of this company,” said Julia 16, a junior at Harlingen High School.

Audrey 2, you see, is a blood eating plant from outer space who landed on Earth during a solar eclipse. It has been discovered by Seymour, played by George Matthew Gutierrez, a hapless employee in the plant shop owned by Mr. Mushnik on Skid Row.

“He’s trying to make this plant grow,” said George Matthew, 17, a senior.

“He has no clue the plant is from outer space,” he said. “It looks something like a Venus flytrap.”

Seymour is passionately in love with Audrey, his co-worker played by Azeneth Corrales, 18, a senior at Harlingen High School.

“Suddenly Seymour, here to provide me with sweet understandings,” Azeneth sings with powerful and unflinching clarity.

Azeneth’s character Audrey presented her with a special challenge. Audrey is bold and beautiful and yet sensitive and insecure.

“Audrey is by far the most difficult role that I’ve had to play because she is out of my comfort zone,” Azeneth said. “It’s been interesting to play such a naïve and sensitive character who is yet so small. She’s got a beautiful body and she doesn’t even realize it. It’s helped me grow in perspective.”

Throughout the show, gaping jaws with jagged teeth open and close, hungry and threatening for the next hapless prey. The jaws are the actual Audrey 2, and Julia is the manifestation of the Audrey 2 in the mind of Seymour. The whole ensemble conveys the idea of these dreadfully colored creatures trying to lure in their prey with all manner of enticements.

And therein lies the deeper purposes of the work, explains Christopher Esparza, Harlingen High School theater and speech director.

“Seymour’s obsession with Audrey leads him to name his mysterious plant after her,” Esparza said. “So in our production, Audrey 2 is personified as a woman who can tempt and manipulate him. This choice makes the plant not just a monster, but the embodiment of Seymour’s desires and weaknesses.”

In the midst of all these machinations and conjuries are two students dressed in green and sort of slithering about the stage, bringing to mind the green woman dancing in the iconic scene from the original “Star Trek.”

“The vine dancers serve as Audrey 2’s extensions — her hidden minions — seen only by Seymour and the plant itself,” said Esparza. “They carry out her will, visually showing how her influence creeps in, surrounds, and consumes him.”

It is, in essence, a story about the struggle between ethics and desires.

Saturday afternoon’s rehearsals were filled with direction, adulation, fine tuning and celebration.

“Adjustment, girls,” said Eddy Cavazos, theater and speech director at Harlingen High School South.

Esparza: “Could I get some paper towels?”

This musical is filled with color and fun and continuous movements and delightful vocal performances to keep audiences fully engaged. Street urchins move about in fine dance choreography’s. Mr. Mushnik, a cranky old Jewish fellow played by 15-year-old Eric Mendoza, is endlessly scolding Seymour, his young employee.

Nadia Vento, a junior and one of the urchins, indicated preparation for the show has required a great deal of rehearsing and polishing.

“We just got finished blocking it and things are running really really smooth,” she said. “It’s just a matter of running it and running it and running it and keeping it fresh and new.”

Performances at the Harlingen Performing Arts Conservatory are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Monday at 2:30 p.m.

For more information, see www.hcisd.org.

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