Kaitlin Schaub, Manhattan sophomore, and Michael Turner, Manhattan freshman, from left, show their movies in the dance contest at the screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" Thursday. Turner was the overall winner, and Schaub received second.
Friday, October 30, 2009
It was pouring rain when Brad and Janet’s car broke down and left them stranded in the woods. The frightened fiancés were forced to take shelter in a nearby mansion.
They tentatively approached the ominous house. As Janet opened the door, about 230 voices suddenly screamed the word “Slut!” and cheered.
The pouring rain yesterday was real, but Brad and Janet were not. They were the lead characters of the cult film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which played at the Ballroom in the Kansas Union last night. The voices were those of audience members, many of whom were dressed in drag. A few wore black leather, red lipstick and fishnet stockings.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has become a participatory ritual throughout most of America, with showings occurring weekly in New York and Los Angeles and yearly, usually around Halloween, in most other towns. Students have yelled, danced and enjoyed the general insanity associated with the film for nearly 35 years.
Kristian Bucy, Kalispell, Mont., graduate student, said the racy material of the film gave it a remarkable staying power.
“No matter how experienced you are, not just sexually, but in life, it will always shock you,” she said.
The film revolves around a newly engaged couple’s encounter with a rock-and-roll transvestite scientist named Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who sweeps them up into a promiscuous sex-fueled gothic dance party.
During the film’s multiple dance numbers, including “Dammit Janet” and “Time Warp,” audience members sang and danced along. They watched as the couple, played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon, was seduced by actor Tim Curry’s over-the-top. cross-dressing character.
Jesi Lipp, Lenexa sophomore, was dressed normally last night, but said she enjoyed the spectacle of the famously sexual cult film and the amazing variety of costumes
“It’s so campy and absurd, that it’s wonderful,” she said. “And it’s about sex. Just sex for an hour and a half, which is great at any age.”
The film was based off of a stage musical from England called “The Rocky Horror Show,” said Matt Jacobson, associate professor of film and video studies. The stage show premiered in America in 1974, and was made into a movie in 1975, but because the movie was so off-beat, it was a box office failure.
Every student who attended was given a bag of props associated with major plot points on-screen. Viewers throw rice, for example, during Brad and Janet’s wedding at the beginning of the film.
Mechele Leon, associate professor and artistic director of the University Theatre, first experienced the film at the Greenwich Theater when she lived in New York in 1981. She said the chaotic experience gave people a feeling of release, particularly around Halloween.
“Rocky Horror is about subversive identities, you know, the monster and the transvestite,” she said. “Just face it, it’s a great way for people who have never appeared on stage to get up and perform.”
SUA provided each audience member with a bag containing various props, including squirt guns, gloves and toast. SUA also ran a trivia contest, a dance-off and a costume contest.
— Edited by Lauren Cunningham
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