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The Rocky Horror Show |
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Author: Richard O'Brien
Reviewer: Carolyn Albert for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Attending "The Rocky Horror Show" is like going to a party: you get dressed up, you rehearse your lines, you bring stuff. It's a colorful comic book full of obscenity - so all the kids want to buy it. With the show so much like the movie, some will question, "Why go to the show when you can still see the movie?" The answer, quite simply, is that the show is live. Even though both audience and cast play roles, the interaction between them has a sense of immediacy no movie can evoke. Welcome to Transylvania. Let's do "The Time Warp" again.
  
Interactive shows aren't new to Off-Broadway but up until now, Broadway shows have adhered to their carefully polished texts. "Rocky Horror" is a compromise. Audiences participate, but their roles have become as scripted as those of the actors onstage.
The show is based on a midnight movie that has become legendary over its 25-year history. At the show performance I attended, you could spot fans of the cult movie by the way they bounced in their seats with excitement before the show. Some wore red boas purchased at the souvenir stand. Some readied props they would use on cue: packs of confetti to throw in the wedding scene (replacing the hard grains of rice) and lights to wave when the storm-lost innocents, Brad and Janet, sing "There's a light."
Although few of these fans arrived in outlandish costume and makeup, dressed as their favorite character from the film, many in the audience knew the lines to shout. For example, when DICK CAVETT, who adds a droll and witty dimension to the role of Narrator, announced that there were storm clouds, someone yelled, "Describe your balls!" Cavett laughed at what by now must be a familiar joke, and continued with the script, responding [that the clouds were] "Heavy, dark, and pendulous."
Even though that joke is, at best, adolescent, and by now, quite familiar, everyone laughed. The whole evening is so enthusiastic and good-natured, one enjoys going along with the gags and having fun. Cavett asked who had seen the movie many times, and several in the audience shouted out numbers in the hundreds. Can the show, with a ticket price ranging from $30-79.50, attract similar devotion?
The story, a raunchy take-off on "Frankenstein," has the enticement of taboos. Its central character is a transgendered mad scientist who seduces both Brad and Janet when they seek shelter from that storm. He kills his biker lover (a male, gender-bendingly played by a female, LEA DeLARIA) and goes unpunished. Cloaked as Science Fiction, the tale makes no attempt to be logical.
The main attraction is the terrific rock score. RICHARD O'BRIEN wrote it all - book, lyrics and music. The casting combines Broadway stars with big legit voices and Rock's JOAN JETT, stars able to put the songs over with the same enthusiastic loudness as in the film. The outstanding performer is TOM HEWITT (Scar in "Lion King") whose role as Frank 'N' Furter is deliciously evil and much larger than life. Hewitt gets most of the songs, dominating the score. His costumes (by DAVID C. WOOLARD) are shabby-seductive and self-mocking, setting the tone of the work.
ALICE RIPLEY ("Sideshow") and JARROD EMICK ("Damn Yankees") are appealing as Janet and Brad, the lost virgins [In the movie: Susan Sarandon & Barry Bostwick]. Minimal costumes display their good looks and the songs let their strong voices shine.
DeLaria, a New York cabaret favorite, doubles up as both the hapless biker and Dr. Scott, a Strangelove-type mad scientist, with one bubbling song to captivate the audience. DAPHNE RUBIN-VEGA ("Rent") as Magenta and Jett as Columbia get their turns to belt and blast. As portrayed by SEBASTIAN LaCAUSE, the infantile monster, Rocky, resembles Lon Bakst's 1909 portrait of "Nijinsky at the Lido" currently on view at the Muse d'Orsay in Paris - a pale-haired very muscular man in briefs, and is about as animated as a painting, with little to do besides look puzzled. RAUL ESPARZA supports well as Riff Raff.
Director CHRISTOPHER ASHLEY uses the 3/4-round arena of the theater to bring the excitement of the action to the audience. The narrator's perch is set amid the seats as if he's part of the audience. Rather than ignore or fight the association with the movie, the show continues its own self-mocking manner through effective use of video projections (BATWIN + ROBIN PRODUCTIONS). For example, Brad and Janet are first viewed on film, then adroitly step out of the screen onto the stage. A major disappointment was with the choreography by JERRY MITCHELL (who did such a splendid job with "Full Monty). There's a lot of hand-waving and not much else in his dances.
Keep your eyes on the magical sets by DAVID ROCKWELL. If you blink, you miss the auditorium of shabby movie seats flipping out of the floor. Some pieces descend from overhead while others seem to appear from nowhere. A 5-piece band upstage is very good. Sound design by T. RICHARD FITZGERALD & DOMONIC SACK convey the overloud tones and reverberating bass of rock music, visually echoed by PAUL GALLO's hard-edged and bright lighting. Strong attempts have been made to lure youngsters to the theater with special kids' nights, free tickets to schools, and all sorts of incentives. "The Rocky Horror Show" does it the old fashioned way - giving kids a show they'll love and return to, bringing their friends. Rock music is over fifty years old - yet few rock musicals have established footholds behind the footlights. Strong financial success for "Rocky" might direct future efforts.
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Produced by Jordan Roth by arrangement with Christopher Malcolm, Howard Panter, and Richard O'Brien.
Theater: Circle in the Square, 1633 Broadway (Actually, on 50th Street, between Broadway & 8th Avenue)
Schedule: Tuesday - Friday at 8, Saturday at 5 & 9:45, Sunday at 2 and 7.
Tickets: $30 - $85.00 (effective April 3).
Audience: Pre-adolescent and up will want to go. Contains overt sexuality.
Visit "The Rocky Horror Show" Web Site at www.rockyhorrorlive.com
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