A couple gets lost on a stormy night. They wander into a strange castle, hoping for help. Instead, they find queer and erotic horrors, mad science, and a jeering audience, all in EMU Theatre’s latest performance, “The Rocky Horror Show.”
The audience has an unusual way of participating in the cult classic play and film, by making snarky comments and jokes at the story. This was the fullest experience one could have with “Rocky Horror.” Sure, one could watch the film alone, but it’s elevated to a new level when one can see the cast’s reactions to the cackling audience.
This was encouraged by EMU Theatre. At the show, they sold bags with participation materials. Some of the items featured were rubber gloves to snap during a mad science experiment, rice to throw for a wedding, birthday hats, spray bottles to create rain, and copies of The Eastern Echo to protect from the rain.
The actors had a unique challenge; don’t break character, no matter how much the audience acted as comedians. Their subtle reactions added to the humor, at times playing along with the crowd, though never outright breaking the fourth wall.
Audience aside, EMU’s cast portrayed an over-the-top, humorous performance. The play would still be wildly funny even without an audience. It starred Gary Zelley as the flamboyant, villainous transvestite Frank N. Furter, Dylan Benson and Frankie Cramer as the unlucky couple Brad and Janet, Matthew McFarlin as a hot Frankenstein-esque creature named Rocky, and Isaac Cantrell as the turtle-neck’d narrator.
The cast delivered on the humor, giving performances grounded in their bizarreness. In particular, Zelley fully embodied the outrageous fun of Frank. The cast brought strong vocals to the music, making the songs absolute bangers. They also pulled off the sexual humor effortlessly, as such the intimacy choreographer Jen Pan deserves a shoutout. The commitment to their roles and connection to the audience made the show fully immersive.
Despite how zany the show was, actually because of it, it was a touching queer satire. “Rocky Horror” played into stereotypes around science fiction horror and queerness. By playing into homophobic and transphobic stereotypes, it subverted and satirized them. Sure, the villains may have been queer, but they were lovable and showed the lost couple, and by extension the heckling audience, that there is beauty beyond heterosexual expectations.
“The Rocky Horror Show” infused queer joy onto campus. Thanks to how interactive it was, it gave everyone with a ticket a chance to partake in EMU Theatre, and by extension the art of performing itself.
Frank Remski is a film and theater reviewer for The Eastern Echo. He is majoring in media studies and journalism and minoring in public relations. He has worked for The Echo since summer of 2023 and has written both news stories and opinion pieces.
