37: Act on Passions: I would like to take you on a strange journey

My one of my passions is The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical from the 1970’s. It stars Tim Curry as the mad scientist, Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

Susan Sarandon as newly engaged woman, Janet Weiss. Barry Bostwick as Brad Majors, Janet’s soon-to-be husband.

Little Nell as Columbia, a groupie and fan of Frank. Patricia Quinn as Magenta, a maid. Richard O’Brien stars as the butler, Riff Raff, and is also the creator of the original play and many of the songs.

The story follows Brad and Janet as they get engaged, then as they are driving one night, they get a flat tire. They remembering seeing a castle up the road and go there to see if there is a phone they can use. They then get swept up into a party of Transylvanians. Frank invites them to see his newest creation, a man. A man made for Frank to use sexually. It’s a weird movie, don’t get me wrong.

Things go downhill for Brad and Janet from there. They watch Frank murder an old creation. Then they are forced to stay the night, where Frank comes into their separate bedrooms, and … well let’s just say this movie is rated R. Then Janet gets mad a Brad and sleeps with the creation, Rocky. Frank gets mad at all of them. Then a former Nazi and science teacher of Brad and Janet shows up, looking for his nephew, who Frank murdered a few scenes earlier.

They all have a very angry dinner together, which ends in a chase scene. Frank then turns them all to stone to get ready for the floorshow, aka, a dance scene.

During their group dance, the butler and maid (Riff Raff and Magenta) burst in and state that they are in charge now and will be returning to their home planet, without Frank. After a heartfelt song, Frank and a few others are killed, and the entire house gets lifted up to go home to the planet of Transexual.

It’s a weird movie. A movie that I have seen at least 100 times. I did not look up the order of these scenes before writing them, and it’s been a month since I last saw it. That’s how well I know this movie.

The reason I know it so well is because I am part of Orgasmic Rush of Lust, Richmond’s only Rocky Horror Picture Show live shadow cast. We perform the movie the first weekend of every month at BowTie Cinemas, acting it out in front of the screen while the movie plays on the screen behind us.Part of the fun of the show is that there are callbacks that the audience can yell at the screen. The callbacks are generally mean and hopefully dirty.

I joined the cast after I had only seen the live show twice. I started because it seemed like fun! A good way for me to get out of my shell a bit and try something new. I started on props, then moved to be a Transylvanian, then into the face characters of Columbia and Riff Raff. I’ve been doing it for a year and a half and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it!