Diana Wichtel column: Just the thing when life gets rocky

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3008272

7 December 2002
By DIANA WICHTEL

Back in the early 1970s, a New Zealander living in London and with time to kill decided that "dammit" could reasonably be rhymed with "Janet" and an international, interactive monster was born.

I didn't catch up with The Rocky Horror Show until the mad mid-80s. Somehow it seemed like a good plan to pack up my partner and go cover for the Listener the cult happening that had grown up around midnight screenings of the movie version.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was playing and playing at the Hollywood, so it was off to deepest darkest Avondale, wearing garish makeup and sleazy clothes. I dressed up, too.

In those days, the Rocky experience was still a bit risky.

The partner nearly got his head punched in by some local boys who had clearly never heard of Dr Frank 'N' Furter and would not be wearing makeup anytime soon. At least not in public.

"Don't dream it, be it" was never the easy path in life. Nevertheless, we and a packed theatre full of other degenerates had a great night. So I was curious to see how the stage version has stood the test of time. Was it really advisable to do the Time Warp again?

Yes. And it really is time we made a place for Richard O'Brien in the pantheon of Great New Zealanders, somewhere between Sir Edmund Hillary and Lynn of Tawa.

Who? Exactly. At least the expat genius and Rocky creator has had some local publicity lately, thanks to Auckland Theatre Company's rocking, joyous production of O'Brien's greatest hit. His only hit, really. But he certainly knocked the bastard off. The show's been a cult must-see for 30 years.

And at heart, Rocky is a very New Zealand play. Transsexual transvestites, kinky sex, bad clothes, a cheerful singalong - what could be more Kiwi than that?

As a personal tribute to O'Brien for taking the oxymoron out of the phrase "a fun night at the theatre", I'm sure I can dredge up nine reasons The Rocky Horror Show should edge at least one Roger Hall out of the admittedly short list of great New Zealand plays.

(1) Not nearly enough of our playwrights turn up for opening night in drag. Roger Hall should try it.

(2) Okay, O'Brien only lived in New Zealand for 12 years, but that sort of technicality doesn't stop us from claiming the far more embarrassing Russell Crowe, who has also been known to wear a skirt.

(3) They were clearly formative years, spent fighting culture shock in flea pits, absorbing the language of B-grade schlock and the weirdness that lurks beneath the bland surface of Hamilton. In those days, even bad movies took six months to get here. We literally did live in a Time Warp.

That catchy ditty could be our national anthem. Some would say New Zealand's relationship to the space-time continuum is still fairly tangential. Just as Brad and Janet only just escape Frank 'N' Furter's decadent lair, O'Brien just escaped being a real New Zealander.

He began an agricultural course when he left school. Dairy farming's loss is a show business gain, and how often do you get the opportunity to say that? (Quite often, if you count the Topp Twins).

(4) Rocky allowed Auckland Theatre Company to finish its 10th year with an enthusiastically simulated bang. So what if we couldn't hear some of the lyrics? The whole point of the Rocky experience is that you know them already.

(5) Full credit to artistic director Simon Prast, who took time out from giving ungrateful local theatre critics a tongue-lashing to find a show that withstands even the most outrageous excesses of his directorial style. Rocky has apparently overtaken that other theatre company crowd-pleaser, The Vagina Monologues.

"Vaginas and transvestites. What does that say about Auckland theatregoers?" Prast was overheard to muse the night we went. One hesitates to speculate.

(6) Except to note that O'Brien tapped into a deep vein of camp that has always lurched its way through underground channels in the Kiwi psyche. Think about it. Diamond Lil, Hudson and Halls, Murray Mexted's rugby commentary ... Even new boys like Havoc (an excellent Eddie/Dr Scott in the production) and Newsboy play innocent, regressive homoeroticism for all its worth.

So, for that matter, do Paul Holmes and Brian Edwards (is it me or is there something increasingly alarming about their badinage during Edwards' media comment slot on Holmes' breakfast show?

This week they couldn't stop talking about frottage, and Holmes insisted that Edwards admire his upper body. In short, the country that produced yodeling lesbian twins who perform with milking equipment on their heads has to be Rocky's true spiritual home.

(7) Because the show is ridiculously easy to cast here. Dammit, Janet, even Sir Robert Muldoon was once in it. (He played the narrator. I can't remember if he wore fishnets). Come to think of it, Helen Clark would make an excellent Frank 'N' Furter, and Bill English would be great as bewildered straight-arrow Brad, if the leader of the opposition thing continues not to work out.

(8) Because O'Brien links us to that other musical horror, the Spice Girls' movie Spiceworld. (O'Brien played a paparazzo). Geri's outfits make Frank 'N' Furter look tasteful.

(9) Because Rocky is still oddly relevant. You could see Janet and Brad's dilemma stranded in a seductive, bewildering new world - "Something different," as poet Allen Curnow once wrote, "something no one counted on" - as a metaphor for the existential dislocation of the colonial experience.

Well, maybe not. But, like all the best camp products, Rocky looks dangerous but is ultimately harmless and good-hearted.

In an increasingly dangerous world we can use as much of that as we can get.