Rocky Horror at the Old Globe (my review)

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/25/11 at 1:09am

Spoilers! I apologize if this is too long. I just sat down and wrote everything that came to mind so I hope you all enjoy.

I went to see The Rocky Horror Show at the Old Globe today. I was a bit skeptical that the production would even gel with the, shall we say, disappearance of both the announced lead actor and director, but those fears were quickly alleviated once the show began. They had prop bags on sale in the lobby for three dollars. I figured it wouldn’t be Rocky Horror without one so I went ahead a bought a bag. Inside was a newspaper, playing cards, a rubber glove, a balloon and an l.e.d. flash light in the shape of a lighter. I would say about one third of the audience at my performance used the props and it was pretty fun especially during “Frankenstein Place” when all the l.e.d. lighters lit up the house.

In case you’re wondering the show curtain was a simple scrim with the show logo projected onto it. There was also a fake proscenium surrounding the stage that was in shambles and made to resemble a crumbling proscenium arch of an old movie house. Inside of that a red velvet curtain was hung along the top and each front leg of the stage to provide extra masking on either side. This curtain would fly up and off for the castle scenes.

The show itself was designed as a total homage to classic B-movies -- much more so than usual if you can imagine that. It’s a lot closer visually to the movie than the last Broadway revival was. I actually enjoy the 2000 Broadway revival very much so I was a little hesitant at first, but I ended up having so much fun that I was able to keep an open mind and enjoy a different take on the material.

The opening announcement was very clever and done with a female voice and the red lips like we see in the opening of the movie projected on to the front scrim. She made the usual comments about recording devices and reminded the audience to turn off their cell phones for the comfort and enjoyment of the actors and fellow audience members. Then she asked that all other electronic vibratory devices please be passed to the front for her comfort and enjoyment! Big laugh from the audience on that one.

“Science Fiction Double Feature” was sung by the actress who played Magenta and the actor who played Riff Raff. As far as I know it’s usually sung by two women so this was the first major change in that the song was now a duet between a woman and a man. Old black and white footage from B movies was projected on the scrim behind them. It was mostly outer space scenes. None of it was particularly familiar, but some of it did look like it could have easily been from an episode of the original Twilight Zone series.

Both “Science Fiction” and “Damn It, Janet” were sung on the apron of the stage in front of the scrim so there was very little space for the actors to move around in which made the scenes slightly static as there was only so much space to utilize. “Damn It, Janet” was sung with the image of a small church chapel projected onto the screen, but it wasn’t a frozen image. It was made to look like a movie so the image was in motion and there were little lines, spots and imperfections on the film that you would expect from an old real to real movie projector. It was very effective and much more interesting than just looking at a static projected image.

The car scene was a lot of fun visually. The lights were appropriately spooky, there was a lot of fog on the stage floor and they used the special effects rain light/projector similar to the one used in Beauty and the Beast and Wicked to make it look like it was raining. That effect is one of my favorites so I was glad to see it used well here too.

The castle set became visible behind the scrim as Brad and Janet sang “Frankenstein Place.” The band was set up on stage on the second floor at the top of the stairs and Jason Wooten as Riff Raff was hit with a spot and totally nailed his solo. Jason was probably my favorite actor in this production, but I guess I’m a little biased because he did also play Riff Raff in the 2000 Broadway revival after Raúl Esparza left. The castle interior was a unit set made up of three sections, all aged and looking dilapidated, with a staircase descending on the stage left side. This would later be mentioned by Frank as he continually climbed up and down the stairs and made some quip about Sunset Boulevard. (Who didn’t see that coming?)

I’m pretty sure there were some “Thriller” moves thrown in for the “Time Warp” choreography. That pretty much sums up the originality of the choreography for the whole show. Enough about that.

Matt McGrath was wonderful as Frank. He looked pretty good in the costume, but his first entrance was made with a see-through cape so there was no big reveal once the cape came off. The reveal was complete just as soon as he made his entrance which was a total deviation from the way it’s usually done, but not a problem. It worked just fine. Sydney James Harcourt is a total hottie so, of course, he’s perfect for Rocky. He made his entrance in a frosted glass enclosure which came up from the stage floor. This was the same glass enclosure which Frank used to kill Eddie. There was no chainsaw to be found in this production so Frank pretty much just used a machete to hack away at Eddie and then trapped him in the glass enclosure. After pushing a few buttons they created the illusion of Eddie’s head exploding and blood splattered all over the front of the frosted glass from the inside. It was gruesome.

The “love scenes” were done pretty much just as they are in the movie, behind a scrim with the outline of a bed and a pink and blue light to differentiate between the two rooms. There was no bed for “Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me” so Rocky and Janet did some awkward dance with Rocky posing a lot and lifting Janet in the air in suggestive positions.

I loved Kelsey Kurtz as Brad. He was totally adorable and a very likable actor. I enjoyed him immensely. He did a great job of providing the audience with a little sanity on a stage full of outlandish characters. The other big change: “Once in a While” was a duet! Instead of it being a solo just for Brad they also had Columbia up on the staircase singing the chorus sections with Brad and clutching Eddie’s leather jacket. It’s always been one of my favorite songs in the show, but admittedly problematic, and this was a wonderful take on it. I’m not sure I would like it to always be this way and I’m very fond of the 2000 Broadway orchestrations for this song so I would miss that, but for what this was, it worked and it was very beautiful.

The floor show was very extravagant. They lowered a very expensive looking red curtain with gold fringe and Frank made his entrance dressed in a Blonde wig and a silver sequined dress. I’m not sure if he was supposed to be dressed as Fey Wray, but that’s what I assumed in the theatre. The entire number probably got the biggest response from the audience. Matt’s line before “I’m Going Home” was his most impressionable moment on me, personally. The “Wait!” was very loud and then as he said “I can explain...” he pretty much completely dropped the character, dropped the act and just sat down and finally showed his real Frank... the guy underneath all that make-up and I have to say that the song and that moment never really hit me as hard as it did today and it was mostly because of his delivery of that one line. It was a glimmer of brilliance in an otherwise fairly simple and straight-forward approach to the character.

The house blasting off was achieved, of course, with a projected real to real image on the front scrim and “Super Heroes” was very beautifully done lit up from behind the scrim with stars projected on the front of the scrim and stars that lit up on the house ceiling and on the sides of the proscenium. It was a beautiful end to a very fast-paced and exciting production that, while very literal in its approach and not quite as imaginative and abstract as the last Broadway revival, was still very enjoyable and a sh*t ton of fun. Updated On: 9/25/11 at 01:09 AM

[thismyshow]

Posted: 9/25/11 at 1:43am

Would you consider this broadway transfer worthy?

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/25/11 at 1:52am

Thank you, CATSNYrevival!

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/25/11 at 1:52am

The production values are worthy of a Broadway transfer. I was thinking about it in the theatre and my first thought was that it would probably be better in a small house Off-Broadway. But, that's me thinking purely money wise from a producer's stand point.

The sets and costumes are definitely taking inspiration from the movie so that could make it more familiar and touristy than the 2000 Broadway revival, but Rocky Horror is always going to be specifically for a niche audience so producers would have to be willing to take a gamble with the show yet again and I don't really see that happening. I would love to see it transfer to Broadway though.
Updated On: 9/25/11 at 01:52 AM

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 9/25/11 at 2:46am

Great review!

One side note, "Science Fiction" is only supposed to be sung by one female, usually the one playing Magenta (the character is named Trixie...sometime Columbia plays it). It was the 2000 revival, to my knowledge, that brought in Columbia to the mix (and Riff-Raff when Bach was in the role).

[Wicked Fanatic]

Posted: 9/25/11 at 3:25am

Thanks for your GR8 review. I'm seeing it on October 2nd and this makes me very excited to see it!