Have you been shivering with antici ... pation for a new Rocky Horror Show? That not only does the Time Warp but the Bristol Stomp, a Rockette kick line and maybe a little Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies, but with sequined 20-inch dildos?
Dallas Theater Center has opened its season with Richard O'Brien's trash-fab 40-year-old musical tribute to bad sci-fi movies. It's huge. It's loud. Cleavage heaves and nipples sparkle. And that's just on the men.
For this hard-R-rated production, director-choreographer Joel Ferrell, scenic designer Bob Lavallee, costumer Wade Laboissoniere and wig mistress Cookie Jordan, working with what appears to have been a blank-check budget, have gone for big and gaudy visuals that spread, herpetically, into every orifice of the Wyly Theatre. "It's some kind of hunting lodge for rich weirdos," says Brad (Alex Organ), leading bride Janet (Morgan Mabry Mason) up to the door of Dr. Frank-n-Furter's spooky mansion. No, it's not. It's a lodge for rich weirdos INSIDE a lodge for rich weirdos.
Angular Organ and curvy Mason do the dumb-straight stuff just fine. Leading man Frank, the demented Dr. Frankenstein-like scientist in fishnets and bustier, is played with flamboyant swagger by out-of-town import Dan Domenech, a veteran of Broadway's Rock of Ages. He's a hot patootie with Tim Curry's growly purr, and he reacts to a rowdy audience with confidence and witty, surefooted (even in platform boots) comebacks. (This show benefits from audience participation, so bone up on your shout-outs. The playbill lays out rules for how to play along ... because it's DTC, where rich weirdos frown on anything too rude or unrehearsed.)
The local pros in the cast have fun playing against usual types. DTC company member Liz Mikel (last year's leading lady in A Raisin in the Sun) roars on in a Fu-Manchu moustache as Eddie, the rock 'n' roller who sings "Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?" She returns on a motorized scooter as evil alien chaser Dr. Scott. Chamblee Ferguson and J. Brent Alford, both fine classical actors, ham it to the rafters as Riff Raff and the Narrator. Fresh off a national tour of Memphis, Julie Johnson opens and closes the show as the singing usherette, and she vamps it as Frank's assistant, Magenta (note where she keeps the hand mic). Walter Lee is the leggiest Columbia on record. Jeremy Allen Dumont, who also served as assistant choreographer, is a mesmerizing dancing Phantom.
If you thought the simulated anal action in DTC's modernized Les Miz was over-the-top, that was nothing compared with the flying buttressing in this Rocky Horror.
