The Rocky Horror Show - 40th Anniversary Australian Tour; rock musical comedy theatre review

Cast of The Rocky Horror Show in Adelaide for the 40th Anniversary Australian tour in 2014. Image: Jeff Busby.

Rollicking Rocky by Linh

The 40^th anniversary Australian tour of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show was astounding and the cast definitely gave audiences absolute pleasure. From Brisbane to Perth, and then Adelaide with Melbourne later in April, the stage production still excites and enthralls audiences with all the rock ‘n roll numbers, glittering gothic-inspired costumes, wildly wonderful wigs and make-up, kooky characters and some naughty adult sex humour.

Adelaide’s season of The Rocky Horror Show was blessed to have the show’s creator Richard O’Brien as the narrator, who also celebrated his birthday during his stay in the Festival State. The production is wonderfully cast and features some of Australia’s best musical theatre and cabaret performers including Craig McLachlan, Christie Whelan Browne, Tim Maddren and Erika Heynatz.

Dr. Frank N. Furter (Craig McLachlan) performs in the floor show in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Image: Jeff Busby.

The plot is seemingly simplistic on the surface yet has complex issues at its heart, and the stage set is minimalistic with the orchestra hidden away behind large background panels on a balcony decorated with a celluloid film strip; perhaps to hint at the stage show’s references to the 1940s Hollywood B-grade science fiction movies. Perhaps the film strip is also there to remind the theatre audience that they are watching a “fictional film” performed as a stage production, beginning with an usherette (Erika Heynatz) introducing a “film” by singing the opening number ‘Science Fiction/Double Feature’. This may be a clever metaphor by Richard O’Brien to depict the fluidity of human sexuality to be as easily interchangeable as the way viewers watch film and theatre. The “watching” concept is further complicated in the story by those who are watching, are themselves being watched, and voyeurism becomes a constant theme throughout the stage show.

Magenta (Erika Heynatz), Riff Raff (Kristian Lavercombe) and Columbia (Ashlea Pyke) begin the stripping of Brad (Tim Maddren) and Janet (Christie Whelan Browne) in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Image: Jeff Busby.

The Rocky Horror Show is about a young, conservative, colleague couple named Brad Majors (Tim Maddren) and Janet Weis (Christie Whelan Browne) who leave their town of Denton, to inform their science tutor named Dr. Everett Scott (Nicholas Christo) of their engagement. Their car gets a flat tyre during the journey so Brad and Janet walk a short distance in the rain to get help. They arrive at a spooky castle where the handyman named Riff Raff (Kristian Lavercombe), the maid Magenta (Erika Heynatz) and a groupie named Columbia (Ashlea Pyke) invite them inside to attend their master’s, Dr. Frank N Furter (Craig McLachlan), unveiling of his new creation. Brad and Janet are immediately immersed in the sexual shenanigans and liberated libidos of the castle’s unconventional residents (aliens from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania), who not only strip away Brad and Janet’s clothing, but also their sexual inhibitions.

Janet (Christie Whelan Browne) consents to Rocky (Brendan Irving)  touching her body and becoming intimate in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Image: Jeff Busby.

The cast is brilliant with every performance a standout, including O’Brien who not only narrates, but appears in cameo roles during a few scenes; McLachlan as the stilettoed and stockinged sweet transvestite from Transsexual in Transylvania, whose wicked humour and hilarious sexual euphemisms raised more laughter than eyebrows; Heynatz is gothilicious in her outfits and big wigs while belting out her songs as the maid Magenta, with equally excellent turns as the Usherette who opens and closes the show; Tim Maddern is superb as Brad Majors, who is gentlemanly and polite on the outside but is a little boy on the inside; the gorgeous Christie Whelan Browne is lovely like an American Sweetheart in her role as Janet Weis, whose rendition of ‘Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me’ is one of the highlights in the show; Kristian Lavercombe fantastically plays Riff Raff as sinister yet strangely likeable; Brendan Irving excelled as the show’s title character Rocky with his terrifically muscled and oiled body looking divine; Ashlea Pyke is fabulous as Columbia, who begins the show with the world-view of a little girl and we see her mature into a woman who understands the meaning of love.

Dr. Frank N. Furter (Craig McLachlan) sneaks into Janet's (Christie Whelan Browne) bed in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Image: Jeff Busby.

Dr. Frank N. Furter (Craig McLachlan) sneaks into Brad's (Tim Maddern) bed in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Image: Jeff Busby.

 

When Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show debuted at the London Royal Court Theatre in 1973, the topics surrounding an individual’s sexuality were largely taboo and issues of incest, infidelity and gay marriage were not part of public discourse, albeit some academics at the time attempted to give these issues a scientific explanation. Forty years later, issues of LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer) sexuality are openly discussed, accepted by most people and more individuals identify themselves as LGBTIQ. A creative work such as The Rocky Horror Show embodies all these issues and frames it in a science fiction perspective to depict how these issues were initially considered to be an oddity or something unnatural by those from the scientific realm and religious sector. 

Rocky (Brendan Irving) is the new creation of Dr. Frank N. Furter in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show. Image: Jeff Busby.

However, The Rocky Horror Show goes against the conventions of the 1970s to depict sexual liberation and freedom of sexual expression. This aligned with the sexual revolution of the 1960s-1980s that challenged traditional codes and conventions relating to sexual behaviour and interpersonal relationships in the social and political spheres of Western democracies. Perhaps the world will still be doing the ‘Time Warp’ with a ‘Sweet Transvestite’ many years from now because The Rocky Horror Show and its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show enlightened enough people in positions of power and influence to ensure we live in a world where all forms of sexual discrimination no longer exist.