So last night I went to the Old Globe theater in Balboa Park to watch their production of The Rocky Horror Show. Now from earlier posts you may know that I was into Rocky when I was younger and I still have many fond memories of those days and nights. (Mostly nights, mostly.) This however was the first time I have gotten to see a stage production of the play.
The photograph to your left was taken from my seat and as you can surmise it was not a particularly good seat. (I got quite spoiled when I went saw The Tempest earlier in the summer and I was front row center.) The ticket I bought by way of Groupon and while I save more than have the cost, just look at that view. LUckily not all the seats in the balcony were sold and tan Usherette named Sue was kind enough to let me switch to some better seating.
This was certainly a fun night out for myself. (MY sweetie-wife declined going as the published reviews indicated a lot of audience participation and that was an aspect she did not care for.)
The play started with a video projected on the scrim you see in the picture, a montage of shots from various low budget SF films while two characters (Usher and Usherette) sang the opening song, Science-Fiction Double Feature. Not one shot was from any of the film mentioned in the song, something I chalked up to rights issues.
The play moved along quickly, though there was little of the feared audience participation. I suspect that near the start of the run the die-hard Rocky fans were there and did their thang, but now with the run ending November 6th less enthusiastic crowds were seeing the production. There was one bit from the audience that was rather fun.
During the play Brad Majors by way of a video screen spies his fiance Janet Weiss having sex with Rocky the creation. In this production this was accomplished by a projected video in full silhouette of the indiscretion mentioned above. Very racy yet without showing a thing in terms of flesh. (which neatly sums up the whole production style.) Anyway, Brad, angry and hurt, switches off the video and a voice rang out from the Audience “Hey! I wast watching that!” The actor playing Brad, his back to the audience stays that way, gripping the prop console quite firmly. It was clear he was fighting the urge to laugh. After several moments he turned around, in character but it was a good moment of humor.
There were many moments when the ‘4th wall’ was breached, usually by an ad-lib from the actor playing Frank-N-Furter.
All in all a lively and fun production.
This is the SF/Horror film that Hollywood will not leave alone. This film made in 1956 has become a classic of dark paranoia. The phrase ‘Pod person’ meaning someone who is not themselves, acting out of character comes from the plot of this movie. Holly will not leave it alone as this film was remade in 1978 staring Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy, then again in 1993 as Body Snatchers, and yet again in 2004 as The Invasion.
