Last night I attended a production of the Rocky Horror Show, Richard O’Brien’s stage musical later turned into the infamous cult sensation, at Salt Lake Community College’s Grand Theater. Overall, a job well done!

Production and cast:

Many times, a Rocky Horror production will risk mild-to-radical changes to set, costuming, singing choices, etc. This one stayed close to the movie in most of its choices, and in this, it was great. The Grand Theater did a lot with very little, and the set design worked for the most part. I enjoyed virtually all of the performances, and Jenni McKay (as Janet Weiss) and Daniel Beecher (Dr. Frank ‘N’ Furter) eerily channeled their counterparts in the film. Beecher in particular had pipes that would do Tim Curry proud.

What did this viewing of the stage play illuminate in my addled, non-practical mind about the Frankenstein mythos and canon? Well, what is Frank ‘N’ Furter? God or Lucifer? And what is Riff Raff? God?

Frankie created life – Rocky – and he gives ‘fire’ (lust, sexual fantasy) to his ‘children’ (most of the rest of the cast). But then he gets punished for instructing them in indulging in excess. As always, shades of the Prometheus myth, cross dressed with Pandora.

Then why is Riff Raff the one to kill the dreaming and being? Is he in fact a puritanical God who nonetheless resides in a planet called Transexual, in a galaxy named Transylvania?

And now with the talk of God and planets, I’m getting shades of Mormon mythmaking.

And so I better stop before I get in deep trouble.

 

 

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