Confessions of a Transylvanian (9 page)

Those were the principals. But w
e’
re not done.

Something else I found out at that first show: Half of the principals had doubles for the Floor Show. (For you virgins or forgetful types: The “Floor Show” is the final dance number/orgy that Frank puts together with tarted-up versions of Janet, Brad, Columbia, and Rocky.)

The doubling makes sense for this scene due to the virtual impossibility of getting any actor, even a speedy one, to change from the last scene where the characters are turned into statues and into the fishnets and corsets required to participate properly in the final scenes. Plus, it would have been
inconceivable
to get the makeup just right, even if you succeeded on the costume front.

So the remedy was: Brad, Janet and Rocky were played, in the Floor Show, by substitutes. And those jobs were
n’
t easy to get, either. After all, you were dancing around in your underwear and leaping into the midst of an orgy in a swimming pool, so, simply put, you had to look
really, really, awesomely good
to play those roles.

Generally speaking, if you want to locate the sexiest members of any Rocky cast, start with the Floor Show. You wo
n’
t be disappointed.

I suppose yo
u’
ve gathered by now that the cast was pretty huge. There were the ten principals, plus three Floor Show doubles and at least a dozen Transylvanians. Add to this the usual one or two additional members of the team, like Doc, who did
n’
t perform but, instead, handled the crew work—loading and storing the set pieces and working the lights. Put
‘
em all together and, collectively, the cast would usually fluctuate between twenty-five and thirty members at any given time.

The median age in the cast was roughly 17. Most everyone involved in the show was still in high school or—in many cases—had recently dropped out. There were a few of them in their 20s but, to most of us, anyone old enough to be of legal drinking age was over the hill. Ancient.

I thought it was pretty astounding, looking around, that a cast this large could even be assembled, considering how many teenagers seemed to be required to do the job. After all, these shows took place at midnight every Friday and Saturday night and the evening did
n’
t usually conclude until the show had been over for a couple of hours and the cast finally decided to stagger home (if they even
went
home).

So it begged the question: What kind of parent lets their 16-year-old kid stay up half the night every weekend with a bunch of barely clad, sexually aggressive fellow teenagers acting out a movie that celebrated transsexuality, space aliens and depravity? Who in their right mind would go along with this?

The answer was: not too goddamn many.

And that is why most of the kids in the Rocky cast had no parents to answer to. A large percentage of them no longer lived at home. I soon learned that a lot of the cast, even some of the really young ones, had been on their own for two, three, even four years. They were kids in the technical sense. But they had grown up fast. A hell of a lot faster than a lot of them would have preferred.

My mother—my tolerant, cool but still loving and affectionate mother—was the exception. Not the rule. The rule was actually pretty goddamn grim for a lot of these kids.

So this theater—this was their home. Doing this show every weekend was their life. And this cast was their family.

Not their parents, their siblings or their friends from school. Nope. Just this cast.

This was their entire world.

Back to the show:

After the Hapschatt/Munroe wedding scene was over, the Transylvanians could basically knock off until “The Time Warp” started, so I took a seat in the theater with Steve and watched the cast do their stuff. The scenes that occurred during this interim included both the Janet and Brad car scene and the cas
t’
s staging of the number “Over at the Frankenstein Place.”

By this time, Steve and I had got up the nerve to introduce ourselves to some of our fellow Transylvanians (the principals were too intimidating to approach). There was Cheryl, the girl who had directed me to Donny the previous week (and who seemed barely able to keep the buttons on her Transylvanian shirt from popping off, her chest was so enormous); Trey, this older guy with a huge afro, a stone
r’
s bloodshot eyes and a perpetual smell of clove cigarettes; and finally, there was this little brunette named Tracey who, like Steve and I, was here for the first time. We hit it off immediately.

Tracey did
n’
t seem nearly as intimidated by the whole process as I was. She was there for the pure enjoyment of participating and did
n’
t seem to worry about finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I found her attitude healthy, if not adoptable. I wanted to get it
right
. Nailing this thing down had become an obsession. Trace
y’
s outlook seemed to be, “Le
t’
s dive in and have some
fun
. Wha
t’
s the worst that can happen?” Since the choice seemed to be between hating her perky guts and admiring her spunk, I went with spunk.

The time for chitchat was drawing to a close, however, because by this point, Brad and Janet were in the castle, Riff and Magenta were grinning mischievously and the clock was chiming. That, my friends, could only mean one thing:

Time Warp time.

The rule for the newbie Transylvanians, as far as I could tell, was Follow the Leader. But as no clear leader had ever been established, it was really a much shorter rule: Follow.

Easier said than done,
I’
ll give you that...but when the familiar opening guitar riff of “The Time Warp” began and the other Transylvanians jumped up and headed to the stage, Steve, Tracey and I did
n’
t hesitate. We stuck to them like a commercial adhesive product and, one eye on the screen and the other on our castmates, we readied ourselves.

Soon, Riff and Magenta burst into the room full of party guests, the light hit us...and we were on.

Now, it is tempting to say that we did an absolutely wonderful job (because we really did), but the problem with bragging about your Time Warping skills is that the minute you get done, someone is bound to point out that the dance itself
could not be simpler
. If you start patting yourself on the back for your truly first-rate Time Warp abilities, some smartass is undoubtedly going to pipe up and say, “Uh, guys? The dance steps are in the
lyrics to the song
. This is not a difficult piece of choreography to master. Get over yourselves.”

And, to be fair, there is some truth to that. Anyone—and I mean
anyone
—can learn how to do the Time Warp.

But ther
e’
s a lot more to being a truly successful Time Warper, in my opinion, than simply jumping to the left, stepping to the right and making with the pelvic thrusts.

No, you also need to bring a certain Transylvanian
essence
to what you do in order to be deemed a top-tier Time Warp dancer. You must show a little transsexual
joie de vivre
. In brief, if you truly want to rock the Rocky house as a Time Warper...you had to be on
fire
, baby.

Us? Hell, i
t’
s a wonder our costumes did
n’
t burst into flames. All inhibition was banished. We leaped about with reckless abandon. We jumped, stepped and thrust like there was no tomorrow.

In other words: We Time Warped the
bejesus
out of that place.

Thankfully, the song ends with everyone collapsing to the floor, which was a relief because by the end, we were completely spent. W
e’
d been dancing for less than two minutes but we had put so much energy into it that we had nothing left when we were done. Also, those of us who were up there for the first time were extremely happy that we had performed the entire song and had not managed to trip up either Riff, Magenta or Columbia during their portions of the song (the latter of whom does a spinning tap dance midway through it). So we were, I have to say, pretty pleased with ourselves.

And our reward for having not screwed up our all-important number was:

We got a front-row seat to see the all-time best Tim Curry impersonator you ever saw in your life. For, within just a few seconds...

...the Deerfield Ultravision Frank-N-Furter was going to make his entrance. And tha
t’
s when the party
really
began.

In the history of film, there have been some great match-ups of character to actor. Sometimes the heavenly stars align, the right script goes to the right performer and the result is a truly unforgettable performance. When this happens—and it is a rare occurrence—the characters portrayed become iconic cultural touchstones.

Who, after all, was better suited to play Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront” than Marlon Brando? Then ther
e’
s Charles Foster Kane. Orson Welles wrote the damn part for himself at the age of
twenty-five
and the performance is now legendary.

Fast Eddie Felson and Paul Newman. Rick Blane and Humphrey Bogart. Michael Corleone and Al Pacino. Randall Patrick McMurphy and Jack Nicholson. The characters work as brilliantly as they do because the actor chosen to play the part was
perfect
. No question about it.

That said, I defy you to come up with a better match of character to actor in
movie history
than the casting of Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I issue this challenge without reservation because it simply cannot be done.

Without Curry, this ridiculous, mindfuck of a movie remains nothing more than a failed experiment in cinematic audacity. Hell, if he had
n’
t been involved, this wacko flick never gets made in the first place.
I’
ll go even further than that: The
stage
show would
n’
t have worked without him either. If Curry had
n’
t been born, the world would never have heard of such things as Brad and Janet, the Time Warp or the Sonic Transducer.

I sincerely hope that Richard
O’
Brien sends a phenomenal Christmas basket to Mr. Curry every year with a
really
nice card and an Ikea gift certificate or something because if it had
n’
t been for Tim, Richard is
n’
t living comfortably off of his Rocky Horror royalties. No, sir. H
e’
s writing commercial jingles for a living and wondering, “Why me, Lord?” Tha
t’
s the sad truth.

Thankfully, however, the two of them—Tim and Frank—were drawn together by the mystic forces of artistic fortune (which must never be questioned) and...all was right with the world.

So, here you have this one-of-a-kind actor in this never-to-be-seen-again role, and what happens? Miracle of miracles, the movie featuring this character becomes the first live-action, interactive movie experience in all of recorded history. Suddenly, the action taking place on screen is being performed
live
coast-to-coast, with young actors attempting to play the characters from the film
in real time
as the movie spools out onto the screen above them. And, naturally, these young performers attempt to do everything they can to precisely mimic the performers who are appearing, simultaneously, on seventy-foot screens behind them.