{"id":2230,"date":"2019-12-05T01:01:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T01:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-the-words\/?page_id=2230"},"modified":"2024-08-05T21:29:13","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T21:29:13","slug":"english-night-at-the-theater-rocky-horror-picture-show","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/the-words-december-2019\/english-night-at-the-theater-rocky-horror-picture-show\/","title":{"rendered":"English Night at the Theater: Rocky Horror Picture Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Malcolm Cooke ’21<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Rehearsal
Rehearsal of Rocky Horror, Photo Courtesy of the THDA Department<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Crunching on half-brownie half-vanilla madeleines and sipping on Perrier water, members of the English department sat in antici- \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 -pation of Macalester Theater Department\u2019s latest: <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The English Department sponsored the Friday night trip to see this perennial staging of Richard O\u2019Brien\u2019s cult classic musical (and more widely viewed film) on its penultimate showing in the newly constructed Theater and Dance Building. <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i> is known for its vivacious participatory screenings in which audience members dress up as characters, toss props on stage, and shout commentary perfectly timed to turn the already raunchy dialogue even more explicit. The musical\/film\u2019s exuberant celebration of the camp of 20th century sci-fi b-movies (the iconic opening song makes reference to such giants as <\/span>Forbidden Planet<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> King Kong<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> and The Day The Earth Stood Still<\/span><\/i>) as well as the way it introduced a more mainstream audience to LGBTQIA issues, has left this 70s cheese-fest with an enduring legacy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Theater Department continued this participatory streak, and the English majors, once inside, found themselves being spritzed by shadowy phantoms during the rainy number, “Over at the Frankenstein Place.” Elements of participation were integrated throughout, some of which the cast and crew anticipated, and some of which they didn’t.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one has thrown rice which is good\u201d Asher DeForest \u201921, an English major who plays Riff-Raff, Richard O\u2019Brien\u2019s character, said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Asher
Asher DeForest ’21 as Riff-Raff. Photo Courtesy of the THDA DepartmentAsher DeForest ’21 as Riff-Raff. Photo Courtesy of the THDA Department and David J Turner Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

DeForest, a dramaturg himself, found <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i>\u2019s tone a perfect match for his aspirations.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to act in a crazy absurd comedy, because that\u2019s the kind of thing I want to be writing,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i> didn\u2019t simply serve as inspiration for later playwriting, DeForest and the rest of the cast, as well as director Harry Waters Jr., got to actively flex their creative writing muscles in the production of the show. The entire cast, even the unnamed Transylvanian extras (a majority of the main characters  comes from a planet called \u201cTransexual\u201d in the galaxy of \u201cTransylvania\u201d), wrote bios for their characters.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHarry and the rest of the team very much made this a collaborative process; to the point that we even ended up writing a cast and crew note as well as… a director\u2019s note in the program, which is very unusual,\u201d DeForest said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Harry
Professor Harry Waters Jr. Photo courtesy of the THDA Department<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These Macalester specific fingerprints are found throughout the production, with touches like the psychologist narrator being played by a number of professors and staff, including President Brian Rosenberg (who is pictured in one scene erotically stroking a banana). Other twists on the original include the reimagining of Rock-n-Roll ruffian Eddie (played by Meatloaf in the original) as Minnesota music master Prince and a particularly fitting Saxophone solo of the quintessential soft jazz anthem \u201cCareless Whisper.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The saxophone solo was also part of some very deliberate and much more serious alterations. It occurred during one of the more infamous scenes of <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i>, which handles the topic of consent dubiously. The use of \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d along with careful rewriting and directing of this scene, was an attempt to maintain a sense of humor while reworking some more unsavory elements. But these issues can be found elsewhere as well. The brazen eroticism and queerness which makes <\/span>Rocky Horror <\/span><\/i>so enduring also means that it contains a few terms that would now be considered outdated and possibly problematic.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the appreciation of <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i> today requires that audiences understand the context in which the original show was produced: the decade just before the AIDS crisis and a time period in which society recognized LGBTQIA people even less so than today. During this time, <\/span>Rocky Horror <\/span><\/i>served as a sequin-decked Trojan horse, making Queer people more visible through the pure catchy-ness of \u201cTime Warp.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn many ways [<\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i>] makes people more comfortable with these ideas because it\u2019s something they could just celebrate and have fun with,\u201d DeForest said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the problems with the original text can\u2019t just be ignored. The production took steps like giving characters such as Janet (who it is customary for audiences to call \u2018slut\u2019 whenever she appears onstage) extra monologues, and thus internality, as well as reworking certain scenes to make them less problematic, while still maintaining the pace and the humor of the production.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the production <\/span>definitely<\/span><\/i> maintained its pace of breakneck camp. The English department\u2019s section of the audience was sucked into mad scientist Frank \u2018N Furter\u2019s nocturnal, sultry ways, Rocky\u2019s melodramatic coming to terms with his status as sexy Frankenstein, and Brad and Janet\u2019s journey from repressed American suburbia to the strange and exciting world of sexual liberation.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pitch perfect casting of the iconic cast made for a production that reminded us all just why <\/span>Rocky Horror<\/span><\/i> is still so popular today. English Department invitees left the theatre just like every audience does: ready to do the Time Warp… again!<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Malcolm Cooke ’21 Crunching on half-brownie half-vanilla madeleines and sipping on Perrier water, members of the English department sat in antici- \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 -pation of Macalester Theater Department\u2019s latest: Rocky Horror. The English Department sponsored the Friday night trip to see this perennial staging of Richard O\u2019Brien\u2019s cult classic musical (and more widely […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":2310,"parent":2221,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2230","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7641,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2230\/revisions\/7641"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}