Audience does the Time Warp again at Commons Plaza

Nick Bonadies
Spectrum Editor

At the Rocky Horror Picture Show screening and live shadow cast performance on the Commons Plaza last Friday night, political science major Jeff Stallings stood wrapped in a hoodie near the front of the standing room crowd, waiting for just the right moment.

The 1975 b-horror rock ‘n’ roll sex musical rolled on a projection screen behind a full cast of costumed actors – a Richmond-based Rocky Horror troupe called Orgasmic Rush of Lust – mirroring the onscreen action down to the most miniscule props, gestures, and facial expressions.  Under a spotlight, a real live Dr. Frank N Furter (a cross-dressing fishnet-and-lipstick mad scientist with a penchant for “erotic nightmares,” here played by female OROL cast member Jordan Slayton) emerges at the same time as the Frank N Furter onscreen played by Tim Curry, to the audience’s raptured screams.

At his line “I’m not much of a man by the light of day / but by night I’m one hell of a lover / I’m just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania,” Frank N Furter flings off his glittering Dracula cloak to strut the stage in his iconic fishnets, a skimpy leather vest and diamante heels.  This is Stalling’s moment.  To the cheers of surrounding Rocky Horror attendees, he casts off his hoodie to frolic unobstructed in his own gorgeous blood-purple ballgown.

Stallings said he was introduced to the Rocky Horror Picture Show by his parents, who have their own stories of seeing live Rocky Horror shows when they were in college.  “Oh, absolutely I want them to see [my outfit.]  It’s gonna be all over Facebook.”

Rocky Horror, the mainstream flop turned midnight cult classic, celebrated its 35th birthday this September – and according to audiences, who keep coming out to late night showings week after week and year after year, it has yet to lose its appeal.

“It’s a thing where a group of people can come out, have a ton of fun, and – it’s one of those points where you don’t have to worry about anything,” said Stallings, who regularly attends Orgasmic Rush of Lust performances with friends at Bowtie Cinemas on Boulevard, and who said he can’t really wear a dress anywhere else.  “Well.  There’s Godfrey’s.”

For Sam Fisher, a JMU international affairs major, the reasons for Rocky Horror’s lasting appeal were slightly different.  “I really like the soundtrack, actually. … And just, like, the appeal of – everyone’s being all scantily clad and whatnot,” he said.  “It’s just hysterical and no one cares.”

Amy Urban, a psychology major, had never attended a live Rocky Horror show before Friday night, but was herself dressed for the occasion in lace hosiery and platform boots.

“I think it’s awesome, just the fact that they’re open to the idea and they’re not going to judge people on what they wear,” she said, commenting on the fact that the evening’s festivities were APB- and VCU-sanctioned.  “I was kind of expecting to come and have a problem with what I was wearing, but I’m happy to find out I’m not!”

All of approximately 200 chairs set up in the plaza, as well as most of the available standing room, was packed Friday night with ecstatic attendees, many of them in decked out in all manner of costumes and makeup from the almost tasteful  to the pointedly bizarre.  All the necessary traditional “audience participation” props were provided for free by the Activities Planning Board.  To name a few: toast to fling when Dr. Frank N Furter gives “a toast!” at dinner; toilet paper to toss when upstanding everyman Brad Majors cries “Great Scott!;” and for the scene where his fiancé Janet Weiss shelters herself with a newspaper in the pouring rain, backlog issues of the Commonwealth Times.

“Audience participation” is the staple concept behind any Rocky Horror performance, not just in fancy getups and appropriately-timed prop work, but in careful modifications and additions to the film’s spoken lines.  Friday’s audience came well-armed in terms of “callbacks” – “Show me Greg Giraldo!,” someone screams, half a second before hunchbacked handyman Riff Raff reveals a derelict skeleton in a grandfather clock.

Later at dinner, pink-headed Frank N Furter groupie Columbia (played for OROL by former VCU student Brittany Bull) realizes her main squeeze Eddie is actually the main course, and quietly excuses herself from the table.  Just as she closes the door behind her, a moment before she erupts into anguished screaming, an audience member yells “We’ve just replaced Columbia’s vibrator with a cactus – let’s see if she notices.”

Bull said she was hooked from her very first live Rocky Horror show, which itself was a showing at the VCU Commons.  “I just saw how much fun everyone was having, even the audience – getting really pumped up and getting involved.  I’d never seen so many people get so keyed over some B-movie from the seventies.”

“People have been coming out to the midnight showings for thirty-five years, screaming their lungs out,” she said, straightening her flawlessly screen-matched gold-sequined top hat.  “This movie’s older than I am, my mother watched it – it really is a legacy, as weird as that sounds.  … It’s something that people come together over, and no matter how strange it may seem, that’s really what it’s all about.”

She added, “We’re heavily recruiting!”

Readers who missed the show Friday night may seek condolence until next year with these photos by the Commonwealth Times.  Alternately, check out Orgasmic Rush of Lust (www.myspace.com/orol) Richmond’s sole regularly-operating Rocky Horror cast, who perform every other weekend at Bowtie Cinemas.

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