Off-Broadway: `Pete ‘n Keely’

The Key

Ticket Numbers

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These reviews by Simon Saltzman were prepared for the February 28,

2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.

Broadway: `Rocky Horror Show’

If you are inclined to coo over kitschy nostalgic camp,

then you have a choice of either Broadway’s "The Rocky Horror

Show," and Off-Broadway’s ""Pete ‘n Keely."

"If few people remember the 1975 Broadway version of the "The

Rocky Horror Show," everyone, unless you’ve been under a rock for

25 years, has either heard of or become a fan of "The Rocky Horror

Picture Show." Although this film send-up of the horror and

science

fiction genre was a flop, as was the stage version (the original

London

production was a big hit), when first released, it became a cult

phenomenon

at midnight screenings with the audience dressing up and speaking

aloud the dialogue. A quarter of a century later, the time is ripe

for a new and spectacularly high tech reincarnation of that infamous

transvestite transsexual from Transylvania. Although it does not

provoke

the same kind of interaction as did the film version, there are enough

Greek-chorus like responses from a savvy audience to affectionately

intimidate those who have not committed every line of dialogue to

memory.

The Circle in the Square is the perfect venue for this phantasmagoric

production. The well of its arena-like configuration acts as a long

in-your-face runway for the raucous lavishly presented production

numbers and the awesome stage craft and settings by David Rockwell

that ascend and descend to astonishing effect. The show is cleverly

book-ended by a scene showing rows of life-sized dummies facing the

proscenium, the contoured curtain of an old movie house about to open.

The live ushers, played by Daphne Rubin-Vega and guitar-wielding Joan

Jett, provide the opening and closing song "Science Fiction Double

Feature," but are also seen again respectively as the more

hyper-kinetic

Magenta and Columbia.

You don’t have to know what to say or what to throw

(from the little bag being hocked in the lobby) at the performers,

or whether to yell "Boring!" everytime Dick Cavett, the show’s

narrator reappears to either comment on the action, or digress

wittingly

with currently topical news items. Cavett’s conservatively offbeat

remarks make for comforting breaks between the glittering gaudy

pervasively

and purposefully tasteless parade of sexual silliness.

The story is beyond trite, but director Christopher Ashley has plenty

of surprises in store for those that think they know it all. The show

begins as a black-and-white movie. It’s a dark and stormy night when

golly gee wholesome Americans Brad Majors (Jarrod Emick) and Janet

Weiss (Alice Ripley), step right out of the screen when their car

breaks down and they find themselves seeking shelter in a creepy old

mansion. Here, they encounter Frank-n-Furter (Tom Hewitt) a mad

bleached-blond

scientist in fish-net stockings, who is trying create the perfect

man — for himself.

Although they are both soon seduced by him, they also become his

unwitting

apprentices, as he conducts some extremely bizarre sexual and

biological

experiments, all to Richard O’Brien’s ever amusing and trivial rock

score and to choreographer Jerry Mitchell’s energetic dances.

As Brad and Janet, Emick and Ripley are delightful foils for Emmet’s

crazed and comical Frank-n-Furter. Besides the dynamic presence of

Rubin-Vega and Jett, Lea DeLaria also plays two parts with gusto –

Eddie the expendable biker and his Uncle Dr. Scott. Sebastian LaCause

is appropriately muscular and mindless as the wind-up boy toy, and

Raul Esparza is notably creepy as Riff Raff. Be prepared to see more

than a few of the core audience adorned in Rocky-styled getups.

Gawking

at others is as expected and anticipated as I suspect is mutual

mocking.

But nothing you see out front is going to outdo the sexy

science-fiction-wear

provided onstage by David C. Woolard. If "The Rocky Horror

Show"

wears a little thin in the second half and ultimately appears much

less decadent than it wants to be, it isn’t because of a time warp,

it’s because yelling "ass hole" at a performer now suddenly

seems a rather sweet and endearing gesture. Three stars.

— Simon Saltzman