Review: Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show delivers absolute pleasure

Absolute pleasure? In this political climate? Well, just leave that to the Grindstone.

In a gargantuan year for Edmonton music, it’s fitting Grindstone Theatre would stage its biggest-ever show as a purring and soaring erotic song-and-dance production of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, one in which the audience was throwing cards and vogue-ing in the aisles on a packed opening night, its rotating narrator just part of the sensory whirl.

But first: background! This two-act spectacular of innocence lost stretches its long, high-heeled legs all the way to 1973 London, where creator O’Brien took his creative impulse to turn mid-century Hollywood B-movies into a gonzo stage musical which has run near-continuously worldwide ever since.

The chaotic story crashes raucous, no boundaries sexuality with the creation of life itself inside an alien invasion, where the emotion of the songs themselves has always been way, way more important than the plot.

With much of its early cast including O’Brien as yearning butler Riff Raff and Tim Curry playing the now-globally-recognizable sweet transvestite Frank-N-Furter, the play evolved its influential fishnet punk aesthetics to the next level cinematic, becoming the flagship of cult classic B-movies with an audience interactive to the point of divine liturgy.

And so here we find ourselves, some 50 years down the road, in Edmonton, awash in that light over at the Frankenstein place glowing still in the able hands of director Byron Martin (Jason Kenney’s Hot Boy Summer, Die Hard: The Musical).

It runs through Nov. 3 at the now Grindstone-managed Orange Hub.

Faithful to its origins, Kendra Humphrey emerges in front of the drawn red curtains as Usherette Trixie, confidently singing O’Brien’s opening Valentine to science fiction double features we’ll see play out over the next hour and change.

The curtains open on poor, nerdy virgins Brad and Janet — brilliantly done by Cameron Chap and Bella King — who suffer a flat tire and quickly breach another set of curtains into Frank-N-Furter’s lair, a set honestly better than some of the Alice Cooper concerts I’ve seen, complete with a balcony band and double staircase.

A nightmare version of Andy Warhol’s Factory, costume-changed Humprey and Kaylee Squires are maid Magenta and groupie Columbia respectively, everyone mentioned so far writhing around each other.

Soon we’re dancing along to The Time Warp, which of course has transcended everything mentioned so far as a mainstream cultural signpost.

Overall, so far, so good.

But now it’s time for the big reveal: Frank-N-Furter, upon whose back this production will surely live or die (no pressure).

Happily, with quick drag wit for when things misfire, Zachary Parson-Lozinski aka Lilith Fair was born for the role, playing with the yappy-scrappy audience and rolling with the frequent volume issues, which were mostly tech-sorted after the break.

As Frank-N-Furter’s masterpiece living love doll, impressively fit Mark Sinongco plays blonde-haired Rocky with a rather stunning physicality, and while Evan Dowlin’s Eddie could have used maybe a touch more Elvis, his Dr. Scott takes us to the show’s darkest moments as even he begins to falter to temptation.

Speaking of which, if you’re wondering if you can yell and throw things, there’s a paper prop bag provided with admission, including a glow stick, a rubber glove, a streamer to replace confetti and a playing card — if you don’t understand what any of this is exactly for (virgin!!!), it’s easy enough to follow along.

Overall, the musical component was damn good, and I found myself singing along to Riff Raff’s “flow morphia slow,” Janet “feeling done in” and, yes, Brad feeling sexy, crying for his mommy and pretty much every word of Super Heroes which, fittingly enough, uses the same notes as The Incredible Hulk TV theme.

As hinted at before, each performance comes with its own, different narrator, featuring LGBTQ+ defenders from within the theatre and political realms.

On opening night, with impressive dance moves, we’d see in the climax, former premier Rachel Notley did the honours, and I won’t soon forget the show’s closing words about existential futility in her familiar voice.

Other luminaries to still fill this role include Michael Phair, Janis Irwin, and Brooks Arcand-Paul, as well as local theatre legends Trevor Schmidt and, on closing night Nov. 3, Darrin Hagen.

This is must-see theatre, perfectly timed for the season. After it’s done with you, you’ll never want to sleep in a tedious horizontal bed again!

REVIEW

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show

Where The Orange Hub, 10045 156 ST.

When nightly at 7:30 p.m. with 2:30 p.m. Sat./Sun. matinees through Nov. 3

Tickets $43.32 at grindstonetheatre.ca incl. prop bag

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