A midnight screening of cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” went up spectacularly in the CFA cinema last Thursday.
The show began with the classic pre-show virgin initiation. Ushers asked audience members as they entered the theater what the derogatory phrase the audience traditionally screams every time Janet, a main character in the film, appears on-screen. Ushers then marked those audience members who couldn’t answer with a large, red, lipstick V on the forehead. And so the festivities began.
The pre-show, arguably more entertaining than the film itself, kicked off with a fantastic rendition of “The Internet is for Porn,” from the Broadway musical “Avenue Q.” Then it was time for the virgin initiation, in which certain “Rocky Horror” newbies are brought on stage for a series of embarrassing stunts. These included demonstrating the type of orgasm their favorite fictional character might experience, and giving cast members lap dances. The experience concludes as the audience’s favorite virgins have their cherries (represented by red balloons) popped onstage.
“I thought it was an amazingly fun time,” said Carmen Melillo ’09, a “Rocky Horror” virgin before that evening. “I really liked the, uh, virgin initiation rituals… It was really original and hella funny.”
Traditionally, actors perform in front of the screen on which the film is being shown. The actors mimic everything that happens on-screen with a minimal amount of props. This means everything: from lip-synced song and dance numbers to a pantomime blowjob. Actors in Thursday night’s performance included Alexander Gavin Fishman ’07 as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the transvestite star; Meghan Duberek ’08 as Janet; Turner Hayes ’08 as Brad; Elena Logvinenko ’09 as Rocky; Judith Klausner ’07 as Columbia; Emma Gross ’08 as Magenta; and Zac Bruner ’08 as Riff Raff. The cast seemed particularly well-suited to their characters: Hayes’s Brad was awkwardly self-righteous, and Bruner managed an eerie resemblance to Riff Raff through hunch-back shoulder padding and the perfection of the character’s slightly sinister limp. Fishman was particularly impressive, strutting spectacularly in four-inch heels, and possessing the perfect mixture of attitude, sex appeal and insanity.
Klausner, who performed a very sexy strip tease as the show began, reacted with candor when asked about her performance experience.
“Well, I was naked,” Klausner said. “It wasn’t as cold as I thought it was going to be. Scary, but not that cold.”
The audience seemed to have a great time watching, though many were mostly composed of people unfamiliar with the “Rocky Horror” live show. In regular screenings of “Rocky” the audience, typically composed of die-hard fans, scream a series of call-back lines at strategic points in the film.
This audience was unusually quiet, as most people didn’t seem to know the majority of the call back lines. The audience did eventually catch on to those lines repeated many times throughout the movie (“SLUT!” and/or “ASSHOLE!” whenever Janet and/or Brad appears on-screen) and yelled at the top of their lungs.
Hayes ’08 appeared very pleased with the crowd.
“The audience participation was great,” Hayes said. “I had a lot of fun performing in it.”
Leave a Reply