Now here’s a true success story that’s stranger than science fiction. When the Pinnacle Dinner Theater opened the campy 1973 “Frankenstein” musical spoof “The Rocky Horror Show” in April, the program sternly warned audiences, “the only participation encouraged here is your applause.” It was an inevitable disaster, and the run closed five weeks early.
Reinvented and remounted for late-summer nights at the Avenue Theatre, the new program asks only that audiences aim all flying objects away from the actors. “Otherwise have fun, (darn) it!”
Do they! Audiences sing. They dance. They offer their own punch lines, honed by decades of Saturdays at midnight movies. They cheer from the first moment to the last. And why not? After all, there’s no crime in giving yourself over to pleasure.
Talk about a time warp.
This is your father’s “Rocky Horror Show,” with all its flesh, fishnets, flashing and foul language fully restored. It’s certainly not sanitized for the protection of your dinnertime sensibilities. Billed as live, late and lewd, it delivers on all counts.
By transporting this moribund musical to an intimate downtown cabaret, Nick Sugar has pulled off the most impressive resurrection in 2,000 years. (Take that, Mary Shelley!)
Sugar, who doubles as the naughty bisexual scientist Frank-N-Furter, so believed in what this show might have been – should have been – that he redirected and raunchified the original effort, then had the unexpected luxury of taking bids from several area theaters.
The Avenue can’t accommodate a castle set, a broken-down car, a motorcycle or any of the clever multimedia accouterments Pinnacle had – and it doesn’t suffer one glittering eyelash because of it. Who needs a car when you can put two female phantoms on their backs and have them move their legs back and forth like windshield wipers?
That kind of clever problem-solving pervades this astonishing reimagining that is so sexually liberated, the performances by an already great cast have only improved. Sugar has ditched his Liza Minnelli wig for cool jewels glued all over his finely shaven head. The lanky and fine-voiced Chris Boeckx (“Once in a While”) has found a substantive character arc for the naive Brad. And Jeffrey Atherton draws howls as the droll academic narrator.
As Frank’s physically perfect creation Rocky, Kurt E. Kruckeberg was but a speck on the Pinnacle stage. At the Avenue, his golden charisma outshines even his tiny, gold-lamé shorts. And as both Eddie and Dr. Scott, the once dwarfed Travis Risner morphs into a comic force.
Because time has passed, some cast changes were unavoidable, but the additions are wonderful. Most notable is a new band fronted by the effusive Donna Debrecini that shakes the Avenue’s walls. Young Teresa Cope makes for a stunning Janet Weiss whose transformation from wholesome virgin to full-blooded woman gives the piece emotional weight. Thomas Castro has grown by humps and bounds as the new Riff Raff, and Katie Wieland is now ably filling Amy Board’s very large tap-dancing shoes as spitfire Columbia.
Careful readers may recognize that a few weeks ago I fawned over Wieland as – get this – the best of the Von Trapp kids in Pinnacle’s “The Sound of Music.” “Rocky’s” perfect 11 p.m. start time allows for her to do both shows – not to mention allowing gleeful exiting audiences to still hit last call.
In fact, “Rocky” is filled with Avenue-bound moonlighters. Boeckx and Cope also appear in “The Sound of Music.” Risner is in the Arvada Center’s “The Full Monty,” as are reed player Harry Grainger and actor Scott McLean, whose job here is backing up Debrecini on piano on designated nights.
One can only hope all this double duty doesn’t confuse the actors. One minute Wieland is singing about being 16 going on 17, the next she’s … (how do we say this in a family newspaper?) … making a forceful entreaty for “physical contact.”
This “Rocky” could surely survive anything but the loss of Sugar. His Frank is adorably vulgar, but this musical wouldn’t have a heart if it not for his heartbreaking, flick-your-Bic anthem, “I’m Coming Home.”
This “Rocky” has come home – to the Avenue.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Rocky Horror Show”
NAUGHTY MUSICAL|Avenue Theatre, 417 E. 17th Ave.|Written by Richard O’Brien|Directed by Nick Sugar, choreographed by Sugar and Amy Board|Starring Sugar, Chris Boeckx and Teresa Cope|THROUGH AUG. 6|11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays|2 hours|$18|303-321-5925
