THEATER REVIEW
“The Rocky Horror Show”
Grade: B-
Through Aug. 9. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays; 8 p.m. and midnight Saturdays. $26-$37. Actor's Express, 887 W. Marietta St. (at King Plow Arts Center), Atlanta. 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com.
Bottom line: It is what it is.
There are any number of ways for a theater company to mess up a great play. Regrettably, the flip side of that is rarely so true. The finest actors, directors and designers in the world can bring definite flair or skill to a production. At the end of the night, though, an overall show is only going to be as successful or rewarding as its origin material allows.
No one is likely to mistake the campy cult hit “The Rocky Horror Show” (script, music and lyrics by Richard O’Brien) for Sondheim or Kander and Ebb. Underhanded or not, to say that artistic director Freddie Ashley’s Actor’s Express rendition generally hits the mark is intended as a compliment. But it also goes without saying that the show’s targets are easy and its aim low.
If the phenomenon of the 1975 Hollywood version continues to baffle you — almost 40 years later, it’s still packing midnight screenings with crowds who dress up in character and audibly disrupt or interact with the movie — then there’s little cause to expect the stage version (which also encourages such participation) to be quite your cup of tea, either.
Is that the fault of Ashley, et al.? Not really, because, by the same token, if you're a pre-existing fan or if such raucous behavior and nasty activity are your bag, then this lively Express staging will give you just what you bargained for, and ample reason (or opportunity, at least) to eat it all up.
Craig Waldrip seems to be the troupe’s go-to guy for portraying sexually ambiguous or gender-confused roles; Ashley previously cast him in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Here, as Dr. Frank N. Furter, the notorious self-proclaimed “transvestite from transsexual Transylvania,” he’s decked out in full S&M kink by costume designer Erik Teague — lots of black leather and lace, sequins and beads, platform boots and a dog collar, often brandishing a whip and even sporting a bright red mohawk.
Benjamin Davis and Randi Garza play nerdy Brad and Janet, the hapless young lovers who happen upon the mad scientist’s haunted castle one dark and stormy night. (While it’s described as “a hunting lodge for rich weirdos,” the dungeonlike setting is rather poorly evoked by Phillip Male’s bathroom-tiled scenic design.) Possibly excepting the show’s straight-faced Narrator (Kevin Harry), the two of them are the least objectionable of all the other Goth-types on view.
Those minions include Jeremiah Parker Hobbs (as Riff Raff), Ashley Prince (Columbia), Diany Rodriguez (Magenta) and a chorus of six singing and dancing “phantoms” (choreography by Ricardo Aponte). Jill Hames is double-cast in male drag as Eddie and Dr. Scott. Brian Hatch plays the hunky Rocky, the subject of the doctor’s prurient “biomedical research.”
As boy toys go, Hatch is hardly all that, but his off-pitch singing leaves the most to be desired. Elsewhere, under the music direction of Seth Davis, the rock ’n’ roll numbers (“Let’s Do the Time Warp Again,” etc.) are ably performed by Ashley’s ensemble, accompanied by a four-piece band. The bona fide show-stopper among the songs is Waldrip’s “I’m Going Home” solo.
Depending on where you fall on the spectrum, what could be taken as foreboding advice for uninitiated members of the audience might be a veritable seal of approval for “Rocky Horror’s” built-in groupies: Proceed at your own risk.
