2347
(2 votes, average 5.00 out of 5)
Written by Michael Muckian
Feb 10, 2011
Richard O'brien's "The Rocky Horror Show"
If it’s been a while since you’ve donned Riff Raff’s hump, Brad’s horn-rimmed glasses or Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s eye makeup and bustier, never fear. Thanks to University Theatre on the UW-Madison campus, we’ll all soon be able to do the Time Warp again.
UT is bringing live performances of “The Rocky Horror Show” to the Wisconsin Union Theatre in March. You’ll have the chance to act up and act out with the largely student cast, dress as your favorite character and fall down in the aisles at the show that just may have the greatest cult following in the history of theater and film.
“‘Rocky Horror’ is campy, it’s a parody,” says Dennis Courtney, the out Broadway director and choreographer brought in to oversee the show. “But you may experience some self-discovery in the process.”
Part B-movie science fiction send-up and part gender crossover comedy, “Rocky Horror” chronicles what happens when straight conservative couple Brad and Janet drop in on a party at Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s isolated mansion one dark and stormy night. A self-confessed “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania,” the good doctor invites the couple “up to the lab to see what’s on the slab,” and the pair is never quite the same again. If the show has a message, then that just may be it, Courtney says.
“We come from a society that tells us who to be,” he explains. “‘Rocky Horror’ tells us who we can be, and how to have a big party to celebrate it.”
The show may have emerged from author and actor Richard O’Brien’s need to express his inner character, according to Courtney. Although married twice and the biological father of three children, O’Brien sometimes considered himself transgender or possibly “third sex,” a sociological designation for men and women who take on characteristics or responsibilities of the opposite gender in society. “There is a continuum between male and female,” O’Brien told PinkNews, Europe’s largest gay news service, in 2009. “Some are hard-wired one way or another; I’m in between.”
The show, which premiered at London’s 63-seat Theater Upstairs in 1973, was considered at the time to be too controversial for New York audiences, Courtney says. Two years later, O’Brien’s romp spawned “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the celebrated film version that became a cult midnight-movie favorite, with O’Brien himself playing Riff Raff. Eventually “Rocky Horror” came full circle to last fall’s Halloween episode of the Fox TV hit series “Glee.”
“‘Rocky Horror’ is highly theatrical and tends to attract a younger audience,” Courtney says. “The show’s theme is embodied in the character of Frank-N-Furter, a pure hedonist who celebrates who he is without apology. That’s something young people aspire to.”
Choreographing such a familiar property isn’t difficult if you recognize that every show has iconic moments that the audience comes to expect, says Courtney, who faced a similar challenge when he choreographed a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Israel. By maintaining those moments a choreographer can take license in other areas. “That’s where the creativity comes in,” he says.
The result is an unabashed romp with singing, dancing and audience participation. Fans of the film, which played every Friday and Saturday at Madison’s Majestic Theater, Milwaukee’s Oriental Theater and countless others for decades, came to the show dressed as their favorite onscreen characters. They fired squirt guns, hurled rice and tossed toast at the appropriate moments. The barrage became so great that the Oriental began lowering an older screen before each show that would serve to protect the regular screen from abuse.
Courtney expects the Wisconsin Union Theatre crowd to do much the same thing. Or at least he hopes they will.
“I hope they come in costume!” says Courtney, who himself used to dress up as Riff Raff, Brad or Frank-N-Furter, depending on his mood. WUT staff will be handing out bags of approved “projectiles” for audience members to toss, including a rice substitute. “Rice is just too dangerous,” he says.
If nothing else, the performances will give all who come the chance to do the Time Warp one more time.
“The Rocky Horror Show” runs for five performances, including two at midnight March 3-5 at Madison’s Wisconsin Union Theatre. For info, go to www.utmadison.com.
