Virgins Beware: The Rocky Horror Show Takes Moorhead

By Roland Finger
Staff Writer

The fall opening show at MSUM piqued my attention, leaving me curious to learn whether many people in town were Rocky Horror virgins or not, and so I started a little investigation, asking locals a very personal question.

By far, there were more Rocky Horror Show virgins out there than properly de-virginized community members. What’s the world coming to?

Perhaps this is why Director Craig Ellingson is bringing Rocky Horror back to town. He himself said that many members of his cast are Rocky virgins, never having seen a public film or performance of the show along with a crowd.

The band’s piano player, Ms. Julie Adams, admitted that she was a Rocky Horror virgin, but has nevertheless taken proper measures to bring the audience a superb experience.

Ellingson has trained his cast well, breaking their Rocky Horror hymens, certifying them to spread the show’s fever.

Rocky Horror originated as Richard O’Brien’s British stage play, soon thereafter made into a cult midnight film starring Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon.

Rocky Horror is an homage to the B-horror genre. The play starts off with couples attending a “science-fiction double-feature picture show,” and the scene suggests how fear and desire, repulsion and attraction inform horror and sci-fi movies, making them a classic date choice.

Horror movies tap into primal instincts, getting the juices flowing. Audiences fantasize, longing to be sex idols, handsome and buffed like Steve Reeves or shapely and beautiful like Fay Wray.
Humorous sexual licentiousness burns at the core of the Rocky Horror experience. Frolic, abandon, violence, untamed impulses are Frank N. Furter’s domain, free of sexual hang-ups and STDs. This is a pre-AIDS one-night romp.

The plot of Rocky Horror is superficial because it’s meant to be. B-horror films glory in their shallow schlockiness, their ridiculous alternate universe.

But the play’s songs are wonderful, the dance steps rip, and the audience is meant to participate.

This is the premiere cult musical, designed to absorb people with its non-intellectual content. You come for the show, not the story.

Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, the virginal and square couple of the story, have just attended a wedding and become engaged and, oh yes, repressed. They are throwbacks to the era of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, in which pre-marital sex was a serious faux pas.

Brad is confident that the spooky castle where they seek roadside assistance will be completely safe. He breaks the first rule of horror stories: don’t be cocky.

The song “There’s a Light Over At The Frankenstein Place” pulls us into the glowing world of Frank N. Furter, the sweet transvestite from Transexual Transylvania, the master of the manor.

Rif Raf answers the door and is disappointed by the conventional couple because he was expecting the “Candy-Man,” the drug dealer. Rif Raf is a superb blend of Lurch and Bella Lugosi.
Columbia is a spitfire, singer, dancer, actor, who knocks the socks off the show.

The most famous song, “The Time-Warp,” will send you to another dimension. The best way to get there is to stand up and give yourself consensually to the dance instructions.

Dr. Frank N. Furter has discovered the secret of the spark of life, like Mary Shelley’s mad-scientist Victor Frankenstein, but Frank N. Furter uses his power to make his perfect man-toy, the well-built and sexually available Rocky.

Janet claims at first that she doesn’t like a muscular man, but she eventually reveals that she has some aching desire for beefy man cakes. She soon wants to be touched and made “dirty.”
Frank N. Furter, super-slut of the universe, seduces Janet and then Brad, taking their virginity and justifying the acts with a philosophy of hedonism.

Hormones and jealousies rage and build to a deadly climax.

This production has a talented cast in which Frank N. Furter, Columbia, Rif Raf, Magenta, Janet, Brad, and Rocky shake their junk while rocking the crowd with great songs.

If you need to lose your virginity or if you’re the promiscuous type, you are in able hands and won’t regret attending this show.

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HPR Videocast by Roland Finger and Mason Maxwell

If You Go

What: The Rocky Horror Show
Where: MSUM, Hansen Theatre
When: Sept 24-25, 28-30, Oct. 1-2, 7:30pm
Info: 218.477.2271