Fishnets, squirt guns and hurled toilet paper: ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ live experience
It’s 9 p.m. on the first Saturday of the month, time to pledge allegiance to extraterrestrial ostentation, intergalactic gender-bending and, of course, the hurling of toilet paper in public.
“I swear — often and loudly — to strike a blow for glamour and frivolity, interplanetary intercourse, for 6-inch high heels and the Transylvania way,” the lady in white says, her words repeated back by the bawdy, boisterous crowd before her.
The coffin is to the right of the screen, next to the candelabra.
Fishnets?
Everywhere.
Brightly colored wigs contrast with the darkness of the theater where we sit in anticipation — though we won’t be sitting for long.
“This show is about audience participation,” our hostess explains.
A pair of impossibly red female lips float onto the screen; a man’s voice emanates from them.
“At the late night, double feature picture show,” he sings.
We clutch a small silver bag of props purchased for $3 in the lobby at Tropicana Cinemas, the contents ranging from a latex glove to a party hat to assorted playing cards.
The cast gathers in the front of the room.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has begun.
Shadowcasting contingent
“Hey Brad, say something stupid!” bellows our Dr. Frank-N-Furter for the night, a young, strong-lunged dude dressed in black and sporting a nose ring.
He’s playing the transvestite mad scientist at the heart of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” performing as part of Frankie’s Favorite Obsession, the city’s longest-running “Rocky Horror” tribute troupe, founded in 2001.
He’s also leading the “Rocky Horror” callbacks, a central part of the live-viewing experience, in which cast and crowd deliver various taunts, come-ons and punchlines — the louder and raunchier the better — at specific points in the film, while the Frankie’s Favorite Obsession crew re-enacts scenes from the movie in front of the screen, which is known as shadowcasting.
“It’s like a little one-off comedy act to see who can get the best one-liner,” explains Destiney Cain, director of Frankie’s Favorite Obsession, seated a few weeks later at a nearby Denny’s, where the FFO cast often gathers after a performance. “It’s so much fun. You don’t even need to get up on stage to be part of the show. You can be sitting in a seat, you have something to say, and you just throw yourself on in there. That’s the beauty of it.”
Sitting next to her is FFO’s president, Val Shrum, now in her 30th year of performing in various “Rocky Horror” productions. They first saw the film when they were teenagers and have been hooked ever since.
From bomb to blockbuster
“Some people do ‘Rocky’ for a reason, a season or a lifetime,” Cain says. “And I think Val and I are lifetimers.”
They’re hardly alone: There are hundreds, if not thousands, of “Rocky Horror” shadowcasting crews around the world, from Fort Collins, Colorado, to Savannah, Georgia, from Spain to Israel.
Arguably the biggest cult film of all time, “Rocky Horror” continues to rank as the longest-running movie ever released since debuting in theaters in September 1975, grossing over $120 million to date, which equates to nearly half-a-billion dollars when adjusted for inflation.
Despite its longevity, the film was a bomb upon release, its initial run cut short in its eight opening cities because of small audiences, and largely dismissed by critics.
Roger Ebert panned the “horror-rock-transvestite-camp-omnisexual-musical parody.” “ ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ would be more fun, I suspect, if it weren’t a picture show,” he wrote. “It belongs on a stage, with the performers and audience joining in a collective send-up.”
He was right about that last part.
Despite its slow start, the film found new life at late-night screenings, becoming a tentpole of the “midnight movie” phenomenon that began in the ’70s.
‘Opening people’s minds’
With a plot revolving around a milquetoast young couple, Brad and Janet, getting a carnal awakening after a chance visit to Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s castle, the film winkingly, cheekily questioned and satirized gender roles and the prevailing sexual mores of the day.
“ ‘Rocky Horror’ was counterculture made popular culture,” Cain explains. “It was a place where you could take the conventions of society and kind of make fun of them.
“I mean, if you think about the plot of the movie,” she continues, “these two Midwest squares fall in love, they get engaged at their friend’s wedding and then they get thrown into this smorgasbord of gender identity and sexualization. Being exposed to those things kind of opens their minds. And I think that’s the thing for me: opening people’s minds.”
For Shrum, who’s played almost every “Rocky Horror” character over the years, performing is its own reward.
“I like getting up there,” she says, “and it helped a lot with self-esteem, in its own way, where you just kind of don’t give a crap when you’re up there.
“You don’t care what people are seeing — you just want to put on a good show,” she continues. “No inhibitions, you know?”
Where the misfits fit in
It’s a night over a decade in the making.
Though Cain has performed in Frankie’s Favorite Obsession on and off for more than 10 years, this is the first time she has played Janet, portrayed in the film by a lithe Susan Sarandon.
“One of the things that I told myself when I was 18 was that I would never be pretty enough to play Janet,” she confesses to the crowd before the show.
“I always wanted to play Janet, but it was always kind of one of those forbidden things because you expect people who look like Susan Sarandon to play the Susan Sarandon character,” she later elaborates at Denny’s. “And so it took a long time to build a culture within our cast, and I think society as a whole has come a long way with body positivity and acceptance to make it not uncomfortable.”
This is central to the appeal of the “Rocky Horror” experience: Nothing is forbidden, nothing is taboo or off-limits, there are no boundaries — in their place is a certain kind of liberty that comes from a complete untethering from convention.
This helps explain the film’s incredible longevity, and its remarkable ability to keep appealing to successive generations of fans.
“I think it’s about searching for your identity, which is why a lot of young people still resonate with and still gravitate towards ‘Rocky Horror,’ ” Cain says. “You hit that certain period in your life where you’re trying to figure out who you are, what you enjoy, what you like and — depending on how you’re brought up — you’re given A-B-C options and sometimes you want X-Y-Z.”
To wit, the theater crowd is filled with as many teenagers and 20-somethings as Gen Xers who would have been around to see the movie during the early years of its lengthy run.
Love and awareness
This evening is not about nostalgia. It’s about providing the same sense of revelry and release that has powered the film for nearly 50 years now, that continues to transfix new eras of devotees — and the Frankie’s cast reflects as much with its mix of vets and younger performers.
According to Cain, this is a renaissance year for Frankie’s: The troupe filed for a business license for the first time and has also officially become a nonprofit.
“Our mission statement is to spread love and awareness for LGBTQ+ identities and informed consent and body positivity,” Cain says.
Frankie’s has an especially busy October with four shows planned: its regular performance this Saturday and pair of Halloween screenings on Oct. 28, all at Tropicana Cinemas.
Currently consisting of around two dozen cast members, Frankie’s is always looking for new recruits as well, Cain says.
In the meantime, the show goes on back at Tropicana Cinemas, where the familial atmosphere carries a come-you-as-you-are, all-are-welcome vibe.
This is a place where the misfits fit in.
As the movie concludes, Frank-N-Furter delivers a full-throated finale.
“I’m going home,” he sings. “I’m going home.”
But for many of those in the theater, they’re already there.
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram
