The Rocky Show pays homage to its glorious and terrifying predecessors of the 1950s film world with the opening song: “Science Fiction Double Feature” is both an ode to and a parody of the cheapest science fiction flicks, in whose tradition the film henceforth wallows with pleasure – including the deliberately badly trimmed acting and the pretty trashy looking “special effects”.
But also the clichéd world of the musical is sufficiently appreciated: Wonderful is the uptight romance in the mutual confession of love of the young couple Brad and Janet, who think they are on their way to a conservative-cuddly short holiday – until their car breaks down in a thundery night and they ask for help in a nearby house. Too bad that this of all places is the estate of Frank N. Furter. And by the time he introduces himself as the “Sweet Transvestite from transsexual Transylvania”, we will have long since left the cosmos of the normal. With “Time Warp”, the film’s ultimate sing-along and dance number, the viewer also travels alongside Brad and Janet into the crazy world of Frank N. Furter, in which motifs from the shoddiest chapters of science fiction join hands in a row: from Frankenstein’s monster to the threat of an alien invasion, nothing is stupid enough to avoid being roasted in this brilliant satire collage.
But the transsexual freak show within the walls of Frank N. Furter is much more than a means to a spectacular end: beneath its brightly coloured, crazy surface, the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” was and is also a plea for the open realisation of one’s own desires. On behalf of all the stubborn buzz killers in the world, the prudish couple Brad and Janet are first stripped of their clothes and then of their inhibitions – when the entire cast, dressed in suspenders, finds themselves at an orgy, it doesn’t matter who has slept with whom before.
In both theatre and cinema performances, the audience still tends to participate enthusiastically and actively in the action on stage or in front of the screen. Disguises for the spectators, utensils such as water pistols and newspapers (to vividly underline the rain in the arrival scene of the primordial romantic couple Brad and Janet), confetti, glow sticks and toilet paper rolls as well as singing and dancing along, especially during the song “Time Warp”, in the rows of seats are part of the spectacle.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show” premiered in London on 14 August 1975. Let your audience take part in this cult music.
