NEW YORK — When daring young Brits found their way to Richard O’Brien’s “The Rocky Horror Show” in 1973, they identified with Brad and Janet, the sweet, virginal twosome who are stranded by a flat tire and get embroiled with all kinds of kinky stuff thanks to a sweet transvestite from transexual Transylvania. Sure, they were curious. Maybe very curious. But their baseline was the squares.
Now? Instead of identifying with Brad and Janet, now creatures from another time if not another planet, one identifies with Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The said witty, hedonistic sweetie is not so much a strutting shock machine as a normative character, a familiar sight on the Rialto with a whole lot of high-end Broadway competition working just down the street.
That’s great for a free society, but a big problem for director Sam Pinkleton’s ”Rocky Horror” revival, which cannot decide whether it’s paying retro homage to a cult show that was once way ahead of its time or if it’s trying to update the experience in some way, shape or form for this new reality.
Plus, there’s a new problem. “The Rocky Horror Show” became “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in 1975. In the ensuing decades, that movie became a pulpy late-night staple in thousands of American flea-pit theaters, building a community but also conventions of audience interaction wherein attendees scream responses to lines in the movie. And so when those superfans, traditionally well-libated, walk into the live version of the show at Studio 54, they come prepared.
That’s hardly ideal for the live actors, especially Rachel Dratch, who plays the narrator in a stacked cast of demi-celebs that includes no less than Juliette Lewis as Magenta, Andrew Durand as Brad, Stephanie Hsu as Janet, Josh Rivera as Rocky and Harvey Guillén as Eddie/Dr. Scott, not all of whom look entirely secure in an environment where they can get thrown off their game.
The show, designed in a steampunk-y way by the collective known as dots, has made some effort to stifle the, ahem, unsolicited feedback, but that didn’t stop one determined woman near me from mouthing the entire script and hitting every cue at top volume.
I fear the show has landed in a kind of less-than-comfy middle ground, neither an interactive, anything-goes bacchanal, which surely would have been the better way to go, nor a traditional Broadway experience where the audience keeps its smart mouth shut and listens to the performers. Neither side seemed fully happy with the compromise.
One feels for everybody. “Rocky Horror” has a tricky history, and if ever there was a show swallowed by a movie, this is that musical.
There are assets, though. One is the score. It’s not exactly overpacked with songs (the first act here is no more than 50 minutes) but it’s got some melodic classics like “Science Fiction / Double Feature,” “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me,” the textbook example of a song getting to the point and, of course, the “Time Warp,” with its own baked-in, line-dance choreography.
Back in the day, I nearly wore out the vinyl. The whole cheesy, cheeky song suite is always a pleasure to hear sung. O’Brien, now 84, is and remains a formidable talent.
In terms of this production, which I found to be way too arch, ironic and self-aware for this material to actually work — it needs to be sincerely performed, being as that is the actual gag here — the one performance of note, the one thing that really works in this revival, comes from Luke Evans, mostly known as a British TV and movie actor.
Evans’ Frank-N-Furter is spectacularly excellent because he actually commits to the serious reality of the character, landing every song and creating the most empathetic and, yes, vulnerable of creations. For all of his entertaining braggadocio, his tongue is never lodged in cheek. You could not say that about anyone else here; they’re mostly just playing flat or camp. Neither really pops.
Pinkleton, so masterful with “Oh, Mary!,” just didn’t catch the right vocabulary for “Rocky Horror,” a deceptively tough assignment on a show popping up again to remind us of just how easily people were shocked in the 1970s. O’Brien’s cultural legacy is not as trivial as you might think.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
At Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., New York; www.roundabouttheatre.org
