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The Waverly Theater’s large marquee lit up the dark night, guiding the occasional taxi that zoomed by, beckoning the crowd slowly gathering beneath it. Packed six deep, they were barred by a beefsteak bouncer, suspenders stretched to the max, wormlike veins throbbing up and down his neck.
There was nothing particularly special about the Manhattan venue in 1985. It had been built a half century earlier within the shell of a circa-1807 Dutch Reform Church at 323 6th Avenue, off West 3rd Street. But now, under the marquee’s glow, men—some in drag—and women sported phony hunchbacks, crazy maroon curls, layers of red lip gloss, and sequined top hats. Gender lines blurred. Kohl-lined eyes followed the “virgins,” those who were not in costume and did not know the drill.
And so they all waited together, amid the blur of youthful androgyny and perfumed clouds of marijuana smoke.
This was more than an art-house movie club. It was a lifestyle.
As soon as the bouncer unlatched the doors, the crowd raced past, many hobbling on platform shoes, boa feathers flying in the frenzy. Music from within the theater grew as if from a deep cave, and everyone found their seats. A small mezzanine filled up, and the lights dimmed. Several costumed audience members took the stage—eventually dubbed the “shadow cast.” The music abruptly stopped; cigarettes were stubbed.
The anticipation was palpable.
This was “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
The film opened to a black screen and a set of disembodied, gleaming, red-lacquered lips filled the void. And when they begin to sing “Science Fiction Double Feature,” a male voice comes out—an arresting vision inspired by Man Ray’s 1936 painting “The Lovers.” Then, the story unfolds: a twisted, coming-of-age musical-comedy that follows a naïve couple, Janet and Brad—portrayed by Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick—who find themselves at a party inside a curious castle after their car breaks down. What they don’t realize is the singing revelers in the room are eclectic aliens led by a mad doctor, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, acted by Tim Curry in drag, who is a self-proclaimed “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania.”
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”—which will screen on Halloween at The Suffolk Theater in Riverhead, as well as see a reboot starring Laverne Cox on Fox next fall—did take time for it to find its audience. When the film first screened in the United States, Meat Loaf—who portrays Eddie, the ex-delivery man—and director Jim Sherman bought tickets for a screening in the Midwest. They were, literally, the only ones in the movie theater. But audiences in larger cities with more diversity found the film validating and cathartic.
It premiered in London on August 14, 1975, and was based on the musical of the same name. The film featured many of the original stage actors, including Mr. Curry and the show’s writer, Richard O’Brien. The film was first shown at the Waverly Theater on a rainy night in 1976, which just so happened to be April Fool’s Day. No one knew at the time that it would become so compellingly interactive.
The “shadow cast”—which started out as fans in costume who climbed up to the stage just under the big screen and mimicked the actions of the film in real-time, lip-syncing their character’s lines—began at the King’s Court Theater in Pittsburgh. As the interactivity progressed, audience members began bringing props, such as water guns to squirt when Brad and Janet’s car breaks down in the rain, and bags of rice to throw during the wedding scene between Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his scantily clad creation, Rocky. For those who have seen the live show, it is impossible to imagine watching the film without the proverbial shadow cast and a fully engaged audience—and for decades, those who came in costume would get in for free, fanning the fuel and cult cachet.
Ellen Dioguardi, director of development and community outreach at the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation, said she vividly remembers her first time.
“I was convinced to go by my friends from a nursing home I was working at, who said it was hysterical, with a live show going on in front of the screen,” she said. “Who wouldn’t see the fabulous Tim Curry and think, ‘Okay, this I love.’ I just felt his performance was outstanding and the costumes were amazing. I will add, as an old movie buff, I was hooked in the minute they showed the old RKO Radio Tower logo at the beginning.
“About three years later, once I moved out to Sag Harbor, I ended up being friends with a huge group of gay men, watching the movie on bootleg video with them, and I started seeing a lot more drag over the years,” she continued. “It was kind of my intro to a big part of my life a few years later. As the only straight woman some nights at the gay club in Wainscott, The Swamp, it was good that I had some experience with ‘Rocky Horror,’ for sure.
“The movie always makes me smile. I haven’t watched the whole thing in ages, but I always have good memories of it and I have great memories of doing the Time Warp a few times at The Swamp with several versions of Dr. Frank-N-Furter.”
For decades, spectators included every imaginable type of person inhabiting cities across the country, from drag queens and secretaries to lawyers and students. “Rocky Horror,” in its message, demands that everyone is, and should be, accepted. Ultimately, the movie is about love and giving oneself over to pleasure, as explained in the song “Don’t Dream It”:
“Give yourself over to absolute pleasure/Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh/erotic nightmares beyond any measure, and sensual daydreams to treasure forever./Can’t you just see it?/Don’t dream it, be it.”
“When I first saw it I was a kid, it wasn’t about gay, straight, alien, white, or black,” recalled musician Brendon Henry, founder of the Cabin Fever Music Festival. “It was just about these poor people who enter a world of freedom and craziness. The weird thing is that it was about all types of love. We just loved the way all the characters just went wherever the road took them. If there is anything someone can take from this movie, it is acceptance and do what makes you happy. Life’s too short to hate someone because of an ideal, preference or taste.”
Mr. Henry, who first saw the film as a pre-teen, said he had no idea “Rocky Horror” would continue to be culturally relevant 40 years later. So how does a critically panned film from 1975 about a mad-scientist transvestite during a time when gay marriage was a mere dream become so revered that it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005? By resonating with millions through its characters, costumes and, of course, its music—despite being chalked up as a low-budget freak show by mainstream movie savants. The film is still in limited release four decades after its premiere, continuing to play all over the world, particularly around Halloween.
Manhattan was the perfect breeding ground for cult theater starting during the 1970s The city still had a delicious seediness that welcomed the creatives and misfits. Daniel Binderman, general and artistic director of The Suffolk Theater in Riverhead said, “It’s a celebration of the fringe—but we’re all fringe. That was the point of the movie. At the time, it really changed the way we looked at everything.”
The Suffolk Theater screening will not feature a shadow cast, but it will provide props for purchase, including rice, newspapers, water guns and even a script of lines to recite with the film. A costume contest and an after-party with DJ Phil Schmidt will follow.
“It’s a great Halloween tradition,” Mr. Binderman said. “From the opening credits with the lips, you’re in a whole different world. It’s a very creative fun world of people dressing up, being as outrageous as they’d like to be. From that very first scene, you knew you were in something totally different and weird—which was good.”
on Oct 27, 2015