‘We don’t all have to be the same’: BrightSide Theatre revival of ‘Rocky Horror’ comes at the right time
For years director Jeffrey Cass wanted to stage “The Rocky Horror Show.”
This weekend, the BrightSide Theatre artistic director realizes his ambition with his company’s revival of the musical send-up of low-budget horror films that has become a cult favorite in the 52 years since its 1973 premiere.
For Cass, the appeal of this campy tuner has to do with its message expressed by Dr. Frank N. Furter, the mad scientist who inhabits the remote mansion where hapless motorists Brad and Janet seek shelter when their car breaks down.
Don’t dream it, be it, says the sexually adventurous transvestite who dominates this R-rated tuner by composer/lyricist/writer Richard O’Brien (Riff-Raff in the 1975 film adaptation).
Cass says the admonition about the importance of living one’s truth, and living it fearlessly, resonates now more than ever.
He was reminded of its relevance about a month ago after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel over remarks he made about the man charged with Charlie Kirk’s murder.
“It hit me that day how fragile things are,” said Cass, who was rehearsing the show at the time. “It felt like people were being shut down, silenced.”
“The Rocky Horror Show,” by contrast, is about liberation and providing a safe place where people come together to celebrate their differences.
“And that’s OK,” Cass said. “We don’t all have to be the same.”
All the more reason for staging the show now, he said.
Cast member John McNally agrees.
Amid attempts to limit the civil rights, especially the rights of members of the LGBTQIA+ community, “this is an important story to continue to tell, to continue to have the freedom to tell,” said McNally, who plays Dr. Frank-n-Furter.
“The character is truly himself and he does not hold back,” he said. “He allows his visitors to unleash their inner selves, to embrace without any fear of judgment who they are and discover sides of themselves they’ve kept tucked away.”
BrightSide’s revival marks the third time the Itasca actor has performed the show and the second time he’s played the character. (He’s also played Brad.)
“This role is at the top of my list as far as one of my favorite onstage moments,” he says of the doctor, who he first played 12 years ago.
The veteran says he’s impressed by the talent, enthusiasm and stamina of his young castmates, who have been leaning into the show’s campy sensibility.
In doing so, they have to take care that their characters don’t become caricatures, Cass said, while also not taking them so seriously as to make them humorless.
“Camp to me has to be rooted in truth,” he said. “That’s where the humor lies.”
“We’re in on the joke,” he continued. “We’ll push the moments where we can be outrageous, but still be honest to the character and its moment.”
Being honest also means preparing for and embracing audience call-outs, a tradition that involves theatergoers responding to dialogue with props and irreverent (often raunchy) comments, a tradition that dates back to late-night screenings of the 1975 film.
To that end, BrightSide won’t allow audience members to bring in their own props, but the theater will provide “authorized prop bags.”
“I want everyone to feel they can participate in the call-outs as much as they want,” Cass said. “That’s part of the ‘Rocky Horror’ experience, and I don’t want to stifle that in any way.”
“The challenge will be to allow those moments to happen and keep the story moving along,” McNally said. “We want that camp factor but also the believability of how we’re telling the story.”
Interviewed a week before the show’s Friday, Oct. 24, opening, McNally said the cast, crew and instrumentalists are fully prepared.
We are ready to “knock everyone’s socks off,” he said.
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“The Rocky Horror Show”
When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 9
Where: The Theater at Meiley-Swallow Hall, North Central College, 31 S. Ellsworth St., Naperville, (630) 447-8497, brightsidetheatre.com
Tickets: $32, $37