The Tamesis
The source material comes from Richard O’Brien, a former working actor who wrote the script and score that eventually led to The Rocky Horror Show, Premiered in 1973 at the Upstairs Theatre, Royal Court, London. Directed by Jim Sharman and starring a then-unknown Tim Curry, the stage play was a wildly absurd parody of ’50s rock, ’70s glam, horror and science fiction movies, and the fever dreams of old Hollywood (actress Fay Wray was particularly fascinated). It was a huge hit and ran in London for seven years.
However, the 1975 film version bombed at the box office and seemed destined to be consigned to the ash heap of history, until resourceful programmers at the famed Waverly Theater in Manhattan’s West Village began screening it at midnight. More theaters followed and a cult was born.
The plots of both films revolve around a fit young couple, Brad and Janet, whose car gets a flat tire during a storm, causing them to wander into Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s castle. Dr. Frank-N-Furter is an intoxicatingly charismatic and seductive pansexual alien scientist who, in Frankenstein-esque fashion, creates a blond muscleman (Rocky Horror) who wreaks havoc on high society and is ultimately destroyed by fellow aliens named Magenta and Reeve. Raff. Along the way, we meet Eddie (a rock musician who meets a tragic end), Dr. Scott (a confused authority figure and Eddie’s uncle), Columbia (a heartbroken man who loves both Frank and Eddie), and a nervous narrator who tries to control the chaos, with varying degrees of success.
