Review: ROCKY HORROR SHOW at Bucks County Playhouse - Be There, Don’t Dream It

Richard O'Brien's ROCKY HORROR SHOW is the first choice in Halloween entertainment for anyone who's graduated from the Great Pumpkin. But, especially for those of us who can practically recite the entire film version in their sleep, it's gotten a bit weary at the edges. Not so this year at Bucks County Playhouse, though. Director Hunter Foster has done a bit of rearranging, putting it into a zippy ninety minutes of music, jokes, and the eternal audience catcalls  Reality show and Broadway zinger, Frankie Grande, presides over the mayhem on stage as a Frank N Furter who is, thankfully for all, not trying to play Tim Curry rather than the character.

It adds up to exuberant audience glee - singing along, catcalling, bouncing in seats, cosplaying, and doing the Time Warp with reckless abandon.  It's not the midnight show at a theater in the Castro with a shadow cast, but it's still good, not so clean, fun.  (The biggest laugh of the night - the narrator, in an allegedly unscripted moment, telling the audience that they're at a family show.)

Yes, there are some rough edges to the production  Casts are usually larger, props usually more elaborate, and - all right, it's an election year - the catcalls usually not incorporating political jokes. (My guest and I both noted the apparently planted cat caller in the back who knew the whole thing, and who seemed to have the political jokes planted too.  We are on opposite sides of the political fence and both of us were uncomfortable with bringing in the outside themes.)

Alyssa Wray and Tim Shea are a vocally gifted Magenta and Riff Raff; Michael Burrell is an arresting Brad Majors, who can steal the show just by being on stage  Stephanie Prestage seems a bit dwarfed next to him as his fiancée Janet, and Larkin Reilly's delightful Columbia felt underutilized.  That most of the female characters seem to be costumed and bewigged by Gerry Anderson's costume department from Moonbase Alpha on his cult classic UFO did not really help.

But look, folks - this is ROCKY HORROR, not Shakespeare.  It's going to have at least a faint aroma of Gorgonzola, and it's intended to be utterly over the to, which Grande and Mike Bindeman as his protege Rocky certainly achieve with great flair.  It's pure camp, even where the heterosexual edges try to creep in.  There's no denying that Grande makes the show, and that Wray and Shea are the vocal favorites, or that this is still the show that defines the Halloween season for many.

Prop kits are furnished, there's stage time for you to do the Time Warp with Frank and company, and your best cosplay will be admired by all.  This show is the party you should want to be at.  Despite- or, given this show, even because of, its imperfections, you want to be it - don't dream it.