The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien. A humorous tribute to various B movies associated with the science fiction and horror genres from the 1930s to the early 1960s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, Rocky, a sort of Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man.
The show was produced and directed by Jim Sharman. The original London production of the musical was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre on 19 June 1973. It later moved to several other locations in London and closed on 13 September 1980. The show ran for a total of 2,960 performances in London and won the 1973 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical. Songs in the musical include "Time Warp" and "Sweet Transvestite", while the costumes were designed by Sue Blane. Its 1974 debut in the US in Los Angeles had a successful nine-month run, but its 1975 Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre lasted only three previews and forty-five showings, despite earning one Tony nomination and three Drama Desk nominations. Various international productions have since spanned across six continents as well as West End and Broadway revivals and eight UK tours. In 1991 it was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. Actor Tim Curry, who originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, became particularly associated with the musical.
The musical was adapted into the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring O'Brien as Riff Raff, with Curry also reprising his role; the film has the longest-running release in film history. In 2016, it was adapted into the television film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again. The musical was ranked eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals", and it was one of eight British musicals featured on a commemorative stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2011.
Beyond its cult status, The Rocky Horror Show is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements that followed on from the 1960s. It was one of the first popular musicals to depict fluid sexuality during a time of division between generations and a lack of sexual difference acceptance. Like the film adaptation, the musical is noted for a long-running tradition of audience participation through call-back lines and attending dressed up as characters from the show. On the 50th anniversary of the musical in 2023, BBC News states that since debuting in London in 1973 the "production has been performed in 20 different languages" and been "seen by 30 million people globally".
History
As an out-of-work actor in London in the early 1970s, Richard O'Brien wrote The Rocky Horror Show to keep himself busy on winter evenings. Since his youth, he had developed a passion for science fiction and B horror movies; he wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humour of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle films, and fifties rock and roll into The Rocky Horror Show. A major theme running throughout the musical is transvestism, which according to O'Brien was not originally meant to be as prominent as it ended up being. He conceived and wrote the play set against the backdrop of the glam era that had manifested itself throughout British popular culture in the early 1970s; he has stated "glam rock allowed me to be myself more", allowing his concept to come into being.O'Brien took a small portion of his unfinished Rocky Horror to Australian director Jim Sharman, who decided he wanted to direct it at the small experimental space Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea, London, which was used as a project space for new work. Sharman had received considerable local acclaim as the director of the original Australian productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. He went to London to direct the first British stage production of Superstar, during which he met O'Brien, who had played King Herod for just one performance. Sharman brought fellow Australians Nell Campbell and long-time scenic designer partner Brian Thomson into the production.
Star Tim Curry recalled his first encounter with the script:
The original creative team was then rounded out by costume designer Sue Blane and musical director Richard Hartley, although Pete Moss would later take over as musical director. Michael White was also brought in to produce Rocky Horror. As the musical went into rehearsal, the working title for it became They Came from Denton High, but it was changed just before previews at the suggestion of Sharman to The Rocky Horror Show.
After two previews, the show was premiered—without an interval—at the Royal Court's 63-seat Theatre Upstairs on 19 June 1973, and ran until 20 July 1973. The cast included Tim Curry, who had decided that Dr Frank-N-Furter should not just be a queen, he should speak like the Queen of the United Kingdom, extravagantly posh, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, Julie Covington, Christopher Malcolm and O'Brien, with each performing in an all-out camp style. It was a creative triumph and a critical and commercial success. A reviewer at the premiere for The Guardian wrote "it achieves the rare feat of being witty and erotic at the same time", and Curry gives a "garishly Bowiesque performance as the ambisextrous doctor." Record producer Jonathan King saw it on the second night and signed the cast to make the original cast recording over a long weekend—The Rocky Horror Show Original London Cast—that was rushed out on his UK Records label. King was involved heavily in the initial promotion for the show, as well as being the minority backer of it financially with White having a majority share.
The impact at the Royal Court Upstairs allowed the production be transferred to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema nearby on Kings Road from 14 August 1973 to 20 October 1973. Rocky Horror found a quasi-permanent home at the 500-seat King's Road Theatre—another cinema house, even further down Kings Road—from 3 November 1973. The show received praise from London theatre critics and won the 1973 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. When Richard O'Brien played Riff Raff in the original Broadway production of Rocky Horror in 1975, Robert Longden took over the role in London.
The show's run at the King's Road Theatre ended on 31 March 1979; it then transferred to the Comedy Theatre in the West End to begin performances on 6 April 1979. At the new venue, Rocky Horror required some restaging, for the Comedy was the first theatre at which the musical had played that possessed a traditional proscenium arch stage. For the first time, the musical was also broken into two acts with an interval. It finished its run there on 13 September 1980 in what was its 2,960th performance in London.
Synopsis
Act I
The Usherette, sometimes referred to as "Trixie", who works in a derelict cinema, introduces tonight's "film" in a song, with masked Phantoms providing the backing vocals.After attending the wedding of his best friend since high school, Brad Majors confesses his love to Janet Weiss and the two become engaged. The Narrator appears and explains that Brad and Janet are leaving Denton to visit Dr. Everett Scott, their former science tutor, while driving into a rainstorm. During the trip, their car has a flat tire and they are forced to walk through the rain to seek a telephone in an old castle.
The Narrator explains that Brad and Janet are feeling "apprehensive and uneasy", but must accept any help that they are offered. As Brad and Janet arrive, Riff Raff, the hunchbacked handyman and live-in butler, greets them, and his sister Magenta, the maid, appears. Riff Raff, Magenta and Columbia speak briefly of an unlucky delivery boy named Eddie who fell victim to unfortunate circumstances because he botched a delivery, before performing the show's signature dance number. Brad and Janet try to leave at this point, but are stopped when Dr Frank-N-Furter, a pansexual, cross-dressing mad scientist, arrives. He introduces himself as "a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania" and invites Brad and Janet up to his laboratory. As he goes up, Brad and Janet are stripped to their underwear to dry off.
Brad and Janet enter the laboratory, where Frank-N-Furter gives them laboratory coats to wear. Frank announces that he has discovered the secret to life itself. He unveils his creation, a blond, well-built man named Rocky, who is brought to life. As his bandages are removed, Rocky worries about his predicament. Frank admires Rocky's physique by singing a tribute to muscle builders. A Coca-Cola freezer in the laboratory opens to reveal Frank and Columbia's former lover, Eddie, a biker covered in surgical scars, who has been rendered a brain-damaged zombie, intent on rescuing Columbia, and escaping the castle while successfully causing large amounts of damage to Frank's laboratory, exhibiting signs of partially returning memory of the way he lived life in the past. Frank panics, forces Eddie back into the freezer and hacks him to death. Frank tells Rocky — the recipient of the other half of Eddie's brain — that he prefers him over Eddie "/"I Can Make You a Man, as although he and Eddie had a strong mental relationship, he had no muscle, and therefore, had to go. Brad and Janet, somewhat flustered after witnessing the re-murdering of Eddie, are then ushered to separate bedrooms for the night.
Act II
The Narrator foreshadows that Brad and Janet may be unsafe. Janet enjoys Brad's advances in her darkened bedroom before realising that it is Frank in disguise. He convinces Janet that pleasure is no crime, and after she asks him to promise not to tell Brad, they resume their lovemaking. The scene changes to Brad's darkened bedroom, where Brad makes love to Janet before discovering that, once again, it is Frank in disguise. Frank promises not to tell Janet, but as they resume, Riff Raff interrupts on the television monitor with the message that Rocky has escaped. Janet searches for Brad in the laboratory and discovers Rocky hiding there. Checking the television monitor, Janet sees Brad in bed with Frank and seduces Rocky. While searching the television monitor for Rocky, the rest of the group discovers that Janet has slept with him and Brad becomes hurt and angry. Riff Raff then notifies Frank that there is another visitor entering the castle: Dr. Everett Scott, the paraplegic science tutor whom Brad and Janet intended to visit.Dr. Scott in a wheelchair is wheeled into the laboratory by Columbia, where Frank accuses him and Brad of trying to investigate his castle, knowing that Dr. Scott has connections with the FBI. Dr Scott assures him that he has come in search of Eddie, who is revealed to be his nephew. Frank displays Eddie's corpse to the group and then uses a device to electronically restrain the three visitors and a rebellious Rocky to the floor ; the inhabitants of the castle are revealed to be space aliens led by Frank, who abandoned their original mission in order to engage in kinky sex with Earthlings and work on Rocky. Magenta insists that they return to their home planet now that they have been found out; Frank refuses and, instead, declares his intentions to put on a "floor show".
Under Frank's influence, Columbia, Rocky, Brad, and Janet perform song and dance routines while clad in lingerie. After, Frank entices them to lose all inhibition and give in to their natural carnal instincts, resulting in everyone beginning to engage in orgiastic sex before Frank leads them into the rousing concluding number of the floor show. The show comes to an abrupt end when Riff Raff and Magenta enter, wearing spacesuits and carrying ray guns. Riff Raff declares that he is usurping Frank's authority and taking them all back to their home planet. Frank makes a final plea for sympathy from Riff Raff, trying to make him understand his desire to spend the rest of his life having sex with Earthlings. Riff Raff is unmoved and guns down Columbia, Frank, and Rocky before ordering Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott to leave.
As the trio evacuates the castle, Riff Raff and Magenta express their excitement to return to their world and do the "Time Warp" again with their fellow Transylvanians. Brad and Janet watch as the castle blasts off into outer space, confused about the implications of their sexual escapades. To conclude his tale, the Narrator says "and crawling on the planet's face, insects called the human race, lost in time, and lost in space – and meaning." As the show ends, The Usherette returns to recount the night's events.
- In the original London and Los Angeles productions, "Sweet Transvestite" came before "Time Warp". This was changed for the film version and was subsequently updated for the stage version when O'Brien revised the script for the 1990 West End revival.
- "Charles Atlas Song" was replaced by a reworked version of the song, "I Can Make You a Man", for the film version. O'Brien's revision of the script in 1990 featured a hybrid of the two songs under the title "I Can Make You a Man", in the 1999 revised script this song was replaced by the film version, which continues to be used in all major productions. The reprise remains unchanged except for the title.