Asked to put together a bit of live entertainment for an EMI Film Studios Christmas party, Richard O’Brien, aspiring actor and lover of B movies, wrote a song called “Science Fiction Double Feature.”
It went over pretty well; he “performed to much laughter and applause,” he remembered years later. But no one at the time realized it would go on to be the opening number to a successful musical and, later, movie, least of all O’Brien himself.
Today, The Rocky Horror Show, a mishmash of schlocky science fiction, campy horror, and 50s rock and roll, is widely beloved; I’m not sure my father ever saw any other musical, but he saw this one. “You’ve got to go,” he told me, and he was right. Now through October 6th, it’s onstage at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre.
It opens with an usherette (charismatic Emma Pachulski) ushering us in with “Science Fiction Double Feature,” a song both ironic and sincere. Listen to how the winking references to icons of low culture are undercut by the real yearning of the melody. It’s a mask that isn’t a mask; O’Brien knows how ridiculous the show’s material is, but it’s also reflective of his own struggles to live in a gender that never much fit him.
Brad (Owen Taylor) and Janet (Sidney Kaeb), a newly engaged couple, find themselves stranded in the rain, thanks to a flat tire. They walk to a promising house, hoping to be allowed to use the telephone. They’ll end up using a lot more than that, and for the first time, too.
Riff Raff (Darren Pierson), a creepy servant, and his sister Magenta (Molly LaBeff), a maid, greet them. If you know the show, you know what’s coming: “The Time Warp,” karaoke staple and driving epic (“Oh, fantasy, free me!”). The cast performed it well, most of all Labeff, whose joy was evident every time she was onstage. The actress looks a bit like a young Catherine O’Hara, and, like O’Hara, has a terrific comic energy.
Of course, every eye soon turned to Dr. Frank N. Furter (Trever Lee Straub), not least because of his glutes-bearing outfit. The good doctor is a fabulous role: charming, commanding, and mercurial, as glamorous as Jackie O. and as deadly as botulinum toxin. “I’m just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania,” he sings (“just” is doing a lot of work here). Straub wonderfully conveys his viperous tendencies, although his singing never quite soars–then again, he has a tough job here, competing as he is against the memory of Tim Curry’s performance.
We’re quickly introduced to Rocky (Joel Siemen), the doctor’s muscle-bound creation. Furter’s both smitten and proprietary, but one of the show’s lessons is that control can only ever be maintained temporarily. Both Janet and Brad end up in bed with the doctor, neither of them initially realizing it (somewhere, some member of the humorless class is writing a sanitized version of the show, replete with clear boundaries and enthusiastic consent). “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me,” Kaeb sings, having found her favorite new hobby.
The show proceeds at a breakneck pace toward its cosmic conclusion. Pleasure soon turns to horror, but always of a light variety; it’s wrong that Brad appears in lingerie against his will, but it’s also (sorry) pretty funny. Frank N. Furter appears to have gained what he’d always wanted, which is everything, but the show isn’t over yet.
Throughout all this, audience members have shouted, filling in gaps between dialogue with prewritten lines, many of them vulgar and some of them funny. But shouting “slut!” at Janet won’t appeal to every audience; wisely, several of the performances disallow audience participation. Regardless, each performance will be a wild and an untamed thing. Who would have it any other way?
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Grand Rapids Civic Theatre
Sept. 13-Oct. 6
https://www.grct.org/rockyhorror/
