On the occasion of its splendid fifty years, the legendary and subversive show returns to Italy with an exceptional performer
On August 31, 1975, a mouth emerged from a black screen, two bright red lips singing: “Doctor It was the opening phrase of what would become the film, already born as a musical two years earlier, more transgressive, provocative and replicated than ever: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.
Screenwriter and author of all the music for the theater show, Richard O’Brien’s, will also appear in the film in the role of the ambiguous and vile Riff Raff, who will welcome the two innocent future newlyweds Brad and Janet (played in the film by a young and beautiful Susan Sarandon).
Immediately after its release, the film was not a great success: this perfect combination of glam and gothic culture, sexuality and promiscuity was probably too explosive for the time. It was only a couple of years later that it was rediscovered, seeing it once, twice, three times, until it became a permanent fixture on Friday evenings. The public was (and still is) so in love and involved with it that it became its protagonist, first at the cinema, then with the dozens, hundreds, of theatrical versions.
The narrator anticipates that we are about to enter a “strange journey”, even if the adjective “strange” is the most sober that can be attributed to this masterpiece, which this year celebrates its first fifty years.
For the occasion, a new show is ready to excite the Italian public with a tour that started last November 7th from Bologna and then touched Trieste, Milan (at the Arcimboldi Theater from November 18th to 23rd), and Rome.
In the Milan and Trieste stages, the corset and fishnet stockings of the highly transgressive Doctor Frank’n’Furter will once again be worn by Jason Donovan, international superstar and historical protagonist of the character.
Since 1980, “The Rocky Horror Show” has been the longest continuously running contemporary musical in the world, with a legendary and very peculiar “audience participation”. A show that ideally (but not so much) descends from the stage, to involve the public who actively participates in the unfolding of events with themed costumes.
Cheeky, tirelessly energetic fun that never goes out of style.
So prepare umbrellas, newspapers, confetti, rubber gloves and sequined hats. But above all, review the steps to dance the rebellious choreography of “Time Warp”. Because whatever it may be, and wherever it goes, The Rocky Horror still remains: “the sexiest and funniest show in town”!
