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by Richard O’Brien, directed by Ted Dykstra

CanStage, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto

March 29-May 5, 2007

"Caught in a Time Warp”

Any company considering staging a musical like “The Rocky Horror Show” has to ask itself the simple question “Why?”  The reason has to do with the peculiar history of a work that became an object of cult veneration not as a stage musical but as a film.  Some film musicals like “Cabaret” that change significant aspects of the characters and omit and add songs have not displaced the stage musical that remains a harder-hitting work.  The conceit of “The Rocky Horror Show”, however, is that what we are seeing is actually a B-movie of the type the Usherette extols in the opening number “Science Fiction”.  “Rocky Horror” as a movie, thus, makes more sense in many ways than as a stage show.  The current production of “Rocky Horror”, a co-production by CanStage and the Manitoba Theatre Centre that makes heavy use of video, only makes questions about the rationale of staging the show more pointed.

Most of the fun in seeing the movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in the late 1970s and ‘80s, was to witness the bizarre phenomenon of a full house of teens and twentysomethings using lines and scenes in the movie as prompts for callback lines or the launching of various props--rice, toast, water, cards, toilet paper, hotdogs, etc.--at the screen.  The effect was much like attending a secular mass with the movie script as its liturgy.  The whole experience was thus far more important than the movie itself.  This experience is what made the film famous and then led to revivals of the stage show after it had flopped on Broadway in 1975.

Sitting in an ordinary Thursday night audience, I discovered via Eddie Glen’s poll of “Rocky Horror” virgins (i.e., those who had never see the movie or the stage show) that this group made up virtually the entire audience.  The elder subscribers next to me asked if I could tell them what to do when and the young women behind me complained at intermission that they knew you were supposed to shout words out at certain times but they couldn’t figure out when.  Thus, from the start, an audience so dominated by “virgins” was guaranteed not to have the “Rocky Horror” experience that had made the show so famous.  The audience had to rely on the efforts of pockets of “Rocky Horror” die-hards, or “Rocky Whore-ers” as they’re called, now in their 40s and 50s, to suggest what things may have been like.  So outnumbered by earnest seniors and clueless young people, these die-hards created the effect not of a ritual but merely of eccentricity.  Since live theatre is not the same as film, CanStage had to print a list of “Do’s and Don’ts” for viewing the show, which, though necessary for the actors’ safety, ensures that, even if the audience were entirely composed of “Rocky Whore-ers”, the experience would not be the same.

Under Ted Dykstra’s lax direction the show itself is torn between imitating the movie and trying to be different, pretty much falling between two stools.  Perhaps at some time in the future when all the die-hards have died off, it may be possible for a director to reimagine the musical without reference to the movie, but at the moment, it seems, that isn’t possible.  Designer Michael Gianfrancesco’s curtain and set aimed to make the stage look like a broken down movie theatre with a the movie screen askew on the back wall and split open at one end.  His best idea is to have Rocky brought to life in a horizontal old-fashioned movie theatre popcorn machine apparently through the influence of the popcorn popping.

Unsurprisingly for a stage show that pretends to be a film, the best aspects of the production are its uses of video.  To have Riff-Raff video Dr. Frank ‘n’ Furter during “Sweet Transvestite” and project it on the screen behind reinforces Riff-Raff’s subservient position and Dr. F.’s self-aggrandizement.  The montage designed by Tyler Devine and Craig Putt of old movie posters to illustrate each of the references in “Science Fiction” is masterfully done.  Surpassing these are the filmed appearances of John Neville as the Narrator projected onto the curtain, the back screen or on two disks near the proscenium.  Neville’s completely deadpan delivery of the Narrator’s loony, moralizing version of events is funny enough in itself but the needless cutting between quirky angles of the filming and the occasional dipping of the boom mike into the frame made his over-seriousness even funnier.  It’s too bad that “Rocky Horror” fans are trained to shout out “Boring” to drown out his speeches since they are the best parts of the show.

Like Dykstra, costume designer Erika Conner does not bring a unified vision to the show.  Her Brad and Janet could have stepped out from the movie.  So could Riff-Raff and Magenta except that she has restyled their hair.  Frank ‘n’ Furter’s outfits are also basically the same as in the film except that he has a shaved head and goatee and makes his first appearance in an extravagant red robe that makes him look like a clichéd image of the devil.  Columbia, in her 1960s-style fluorescent colours, does not fit in at all.  If Conner does not come up with a look for the show neither does choreographer Jody Ripplinger devise up any stylish moves focussing overmuch, as does Dykstra, on pelvic thrusts as a universal form of emphasis.  It’s odd that she does not choreograph the “Time Warp” with the correct air-punching arm movements since you need only look at the fans in the audience to see what should be done.

To bring off a deliberately camp show like this requires a first-rate cast while the CanStage cast is quite uneven.  After Neville, who appears only on film, the best performance comes from Adam Brazier as Frank ‘n’ Furter.  He does a wonderfully vampy “Sweet Transvestite”, but the only song where he has a chance to show off his fine voice is “I’m Going Home” which he makes the musical highlight of the evening.  He handled the dialogue adroitly, seeming to imitate a Shakespearean Colm Feore at his most unctuously self-admiring.  Brazier’s obvious pleasure in playing so outrageous a character helps gave the show a vitality it sorely needs.

Mairi Babb is an excellent Janet with the prim and perky early ‘60s demeanour down pat.  She does a fine job of her big song “Over at the Frankenstein Place” (best known for the chorus “There is a Light”, when, at my performance, precious few remembered to wave their flashlights or glowsticks).  Ron Pederson is good as the wimpy Brad, who has to keep puffing himself up to seem manly.  He sings “Once in a While” so well it becomes the production’s first showstopper because of its quality rather than its familiarity.  It’s too bad Pederson doesn’t make it clearer how his escapade with Dr. F. has or has not changed his self-image. 

Eddie Glen, though, great as the Cockney-accented audience warmer at the top of the show, was not very easy to understand either as Eddie, one of Dr. F.’s failed experiments, or through a heavy German accent as Dr. Scott.  As the B-film-besotted Usherette, Alison Somerville gives a fine performance of “Science Fiction” but as Magenta her diction suddenly became unclear.  The same problem besets Steven Gallagher as Riff-Raff, Gerrad Everard as Rocky and especially squeaky-voiced Christine Rossi as Columbia, who rendered whole swaths of dialogue and lyrics incomprehensible.

All in all, the CanStage production is hit-and-miss affair and pales as an experience for anyone who has actually ever attended a midnight showing of the film filled with Rocky Whore-ers doing their thing.  Despite Brazier’s bravura performance, the stage show comes off as kind of cheesy panto for adolescents.  Rocky virgins may well wonder why CanStage decided to stage it at all.   

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Ron Pederson, Adam Brazier and Mairi Babb. ©Bruce Monk.