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Disclaimer:
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Reviews The Rocky Horror Show Reviewed by Jeffrey Scott Holland Entire contents are copyright © 2009 Jeffrey Scott Holland. All rights reserved.
First, the short version, for those of you with short attention spans: Go see this show! It's wonderful fun, and it was hard not to get up and start dancing and singing with the cast, so infectious was its giddy joy. The cast is superb, the music is top-notch, and it's the perfect antidote to these downer times we live in. Then, a spoiler alert: at this late date, The Rocky Horror Show is almost as legendary a meme as Romeo and Juliet, in that even people who haven't seen it know a little something about it. (Even my parents can sing the chorus to "The Time Warp".) That being the case, I'm going to write about the show with the assumption that you, the reader, know the story and the characters already. Pandora's Rocky is the post-Broadway-revival version of the musical, which may hold more than a few new and unfamiliar gimmicks for older-generation fans of the show. It's a lot more tongue-in-cheek and ironically self-aware than the original 70s stage play, and knowingly welcomes the inevitable audience participation (Verbal participation, that is - do not, do not, do not bring water guns and do not throw rice, playing cards, hot dogs etc.). The Phantoms (aka the Transylvanians) use their own bodies to create much of the furniture and set elements (doors, chairs, cars), and add a Jim Steinman-esque power and pomp to all the musical numbers that had been previously lacking. Even Brad's song "Once In A While", usually regarded as the show's weakest link, is reinvented here as a dazzling and even touching "buddy song". All the male Phantoms gather in male-bonding camaraderie around Brad, patting him on the back and reassuring him, as if to say, "It's ok, bro, we all get kidnapped, seduced, and cuckolded by alien crossdressing mad scientists sometime, it's just part of life and being a man." There's a real temptation to say that every character steals the show. Is that possible? They each do so in their own way. Ted Lesley (who I already consider a genius for his performance as the homeless psycho Sam Byck in Clarksville Little Theatre's Assassins) brought his own special sauce to these proceedings as the Criminologist/Narrator. In a dour brown suit with slicked-back hair, Ted runs an endless loop of calm/manic/calm that seems to invoke Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and Eric Idle all rolled into one. Sitting in a booth high above the rest of the set, Lesley's narrator is the glue that holds the whole thing together. Dan Canon as Riff Raff is more perverted, more childlike, and more frightening than any previous portrayal I've seen. Fully shaven-headed, and lumbering around like a monkey in ill-fitting clothes, he reminds me of Ralph from Spider Baby. And he looks great in his silver Ace Frehley spacesuit. Laura Ellis, though slightly lacking the vocal belting-it-out lungpower of some of her cohorts (and that quietness may have just been the fault of the microphone and sound mix), nevertheless makes herself one of the most memorable players by sheer charisma, mischievous sex appeal, and tap dancing flair. The characters of Brad and Janet rarely are as exciting as their adversaries, but in Pandora's production they're totally on equal footing with everybody else. Mike Fryman (who's played everyone from Jesus Christ to Corny Collins) brings us a Brad we can actually sympathize with, rather than just a scapegoat to yell obscenities at. And Taylor Schultz is drop-dead stunning as the dowdy Janet, bringing an Audrey Hepburn-like sensuality to the part even before Dr. Frank N Furter loosens and liberates her. And there's never been a Dr. Frank N Furter quite like Christopher H. Cherry. Instead of merely aping Joan Crawford a la Tim Curry, Cherry and director Michael Drury seemingly are drawing on a wide range of other influences. This makes Cherry's Frank a much more interesting figure to look at and listen to - he's somewhere between the impossible mythic beauty of Hedwig, and the flawed-but-fascinating down-to-Earth accessibility of that first moderately good-looking crossdresser you met in college. Cherry's a quick-witted ad libber too: on the opening night, while ranting about Rocky's infidelities, his necklace accidentally came undone, slipped off and fell to the floor with a loud embarrassing clatter. After a perfectly timed beat, Cherry pouted and shrieked, "and now you've gotten me so upset I've broken my pearl necklace!!" All the Phantoms carried themselves well, but in particular, Jared Brosmer and Kate Holland busted some surprisingly deft Lindy Hop dance moves, no doubt thanks to choreographer Christephor Gilbert's tutelage. The show would have been perfectly acceptable with pre-recorded backing music, but Pandora's musical director Craig Swatt pulled out all the stops and put together a rock ensemble to play the entire score live. Jon Beazlie played overwrought sustain-pedal rock guitar noodlings like a session pro, and Clinton Kelley's drumming had real personality and playfulness, sometimes coloring outside the lines. If I had to carp about anything, it would be the extensive use of strobe lights, which are a real pet peeve of mine. They stayed on throughout the entire song "Wild and Untamed Thing", during Riff and Magenta's lengthy dramatic exit, and briefly at a few other points. Strobe lights are passé, they're played-out, they're irritating, and they actually can cause adverse health effects to ordinary people, not just epileptics. So let's all just say no to the wretched things once and for all, shall we? Strobes or no strobes, I'd love to see Pandora's delightful version of the Richard O'Brien century-defining classic again. I hope you'll see it too, regardless of your previous feelings about Rocky Horror the stage show, Rocky Horror the movie, or Rocky Horror the pop-cult phenom.
The Rocky Horror Show Featuring Christopher Cherry, Mike Fryman, Taylor Schultz, Laura Ellis, Susan Crocker, Dan Canon, Ted Lesley, Robbie Smith, Lucas Adams, and Kiel Dodd.
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