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Security checking women's purses at the door. Orange signs warning "Throw nothing toward the stage (throw backward)." Audience members dressed as ghouls, incanting nonsense responses in unison like congregants. Part cult, part rock concert, it's a genuine cultural phenomenon: "The Rocky Horror Show", which touched down at the Beck Center for the Arts Friday night.
For anyone who has been in a cave since the advent of 1970's glam rock, the appeal of Richard O'Brien's cult musical may take some explaining. Why would audiences flock to see a murderous, bisexual, cross-dressing alien strut around in a bustier, fishnets, and heels, seducing the white-bread Brad and Janet?
For the Beck stage production, the appeal is a simple two words: Bob Simon. As Frank'N'Furter, Simon is the ultimate Diva/Priest/Rock-n-Roll headliner. With a purring baritone and a megaton of attitude, he dominates the show -- and the crowd -- just as surely as Frank'N'Furter dominates his hapless guests. Even hobbled by a leg brace (black leather straps over fishnets), there's something lazily dangerous about him, like a big cat that might turn at any time and swipe the head off his trainer. To watch him prowl the stage, toying with his prey and ferociously swatting ad libs into his rapt audience, is both fascinating and unsettling.
Director/producer Scott Spence and his cast have made an uneasy accommodation with the participatory cult that surrounds the show. There are "Audience Participation Kits" on sale in the lobby, replete with rice (for the wedding), squirt gun (for rain), and the inevitable Plain Dealer (rain hat). It also looks as though the cast has been instructed to hold for audience responses, which slows the pace to a near-crawl in the turgid last half hour, and delivering lines and musical numbers to a steady stream of catcalls creates a shaky power dynamic between actors and audience.
Donald Wight maintains authority (and quick witted ad libs) as the pretentious Narrator. Jimmy Helms also shines as the butler Riff Raff, with a fabulous falsetto. The show begins to cook when he and Magenta (Nina Angeloff) lead the ensemble in "The Time Warp", before it explodes at Frank'N'Furter's entrance.
Jason Davies and Tricia Bestic are a bit wimpy as Brad and Janet, and muscular newcomer Laval Jones as the newborn creature "Rocky" looks innocent but inexperienced. That's all in character, but they are so overwhelmed by Simon's huge aura, it's like watching a Siberian tiger crunch on cartoon mice: they literally shrink in comparison.
Spence and his designers have added some amusing touches throughout. During the Usherette's opening solo "Science Fiction Double Feature", there is a collage of B-movie scenes of three on-stage screens. Brad's Buddy Holly-like ballad "Once in a While" has a swaying mixed quartet of backup singers all in Donna Reed drag.
But overall, this "Rocky Horror" begins and ends with Bob Simon's performance -- raunchy, transgressive, malicious and delicious, it's something Beck Center audiences will likely never forget.
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