MTC would like to take you on a strange journey...
The Rocky Horror Show, until Jan. 27, MTC Mainstage
Grant Burr

Do you think Duff Roblin would dance The Time Warp?

Duff is the kind of guy I’d like to see at The Rocky Horror Show. I saw him at an MTC production a few years ago, so maybe he has mainstage season tickets. Watching the former premier take a jump to the left and then an ever-so-conservative step to the right would make for the kind of night I would remember for a very long time.

While Roblin may not be in attendance when the curtain goes up on MTC’s production of The Rocky Horror Show, the presentation is certain to draw some decidedly different patrons to the theatre — but MTC artistic director Stephen Schipper is ready and waiting for them.

“There will be some people who will be coming to MTC for the first time. That’s great,” he says. “We’ll introduce them to our theatre.”

Schipper swallows the hook

Schipper recalls that his first experience with Rocky Horror, Riff-Raff, Magenta and more came when he was a Montreal teen attending a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the film version of Richard O’Brien’s cult classic. Schipper says the play/film still evokes the same reaction 30 years later.

“It was a big deal for me as a teenager, and it was a big deal for our teenagers when we announced we were presenting it,” he says of the show.

Schipper believes the play’s broad appeal will translate into it being something of downtown party play. Picture a Glen Murray block party — but with feather boas.

Schipper says the challenge of creating that party atmosphere comes in trying to present something new that will still satisfies diehard fans. The hurdle is there when remounting any production with a strong following but it becomes even more important to get it right, given that Rocky Horror fans have had a tendency to assault movie screens with projectiles.

In search of balance between new and old, Schipper called on director Ted Dykstra, a man he describes as having “a playful spirit that goes well with the production.”

Dykstra hopes audiences will love the edgy production but makes no presumptions about what they’ll take away from the show.

“The message they get is different for every person,” he says.

‘The plot? Ah, whatever.’

And, of course, The Rocky Horror Show is a different sort of play, one that required a shift in the rehearsal process.

“Your instinct would be to find what is the through-line for the play,” Dykstra says. “You can try real hard but you’re not going to find it.”

So there really is no way of establishing a link between Brad and Janet in their underwear, a biker being bludgeoned to death in a deep freeze, and a dozen dancing Transylvanians?

“Our job is to realize its potential,” Dystra says of the wild production. “It’s not about a literal story.”

Forsaking a traditional approach to theatre, the director says he has worked with the cast to establish one truth — do whatever each specific moment requires.

That fact should sit well with rabid Rocky Horror fans who fear the off-kilter shenanigans of the movie might be lost on the boards.

“I make tie-ins to the movie all the time,” Dykstra says..

The X-Files connection — or conspiracy?

In fact, all the narrator/criminologist scenes have actually been filmed and will be presented on video. To fill the role Dykstra enlisted John Neville, perhaps best known as the Well-Manicured Man on The X-Files. Dykstra says Neville did a great job interpreting the character made famous by Charles Gray in the original film.

The show is known for its wild audience participation, and Dykstra admits MTC was a bit worried about the safety of its actors but he hopes the theatre didn’t curb any enthusiasm with its initial comments on what not to bring to the show.

“I would have preferred a ‘do list’ rather than a ‘do not list,” he says.

Despite a ban on rice, hotdogs and toast, all of which are projectiles traditionally thrown at specific points in Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings, Dykstra says the cast and crew are ready for anything. But they will certainly attempt to remind audiences prior to performances that these are real actors on a real stage.

It’s cool — He’s with us

Toast or no toast, at least one Rocky Horror fanatic has already cleared his schedule for January.

“Normally, perhaps I’ll see a show at opening, once in the middle, and then closing night,” Schipper says. “I’m planning to be in the back at as many performances as I can, just moving to the music.”

Who knows? Maybe Duff Roblin will join him.

For more info see our What’s Up entertainment listings, beginning on page 6.

The colour of weird
Actress explores the strange mind of Rocky Horror’s Magenta

Someone needs to keep the good doctor in line over at the Frankenstein place, and who better than the colourful Magenta, played by Alison SomerVille in MTC’s production of The Rocky Horror Show.

SomerVille is a veteran of such shows as Cabaret and Mamma Mia!, but wild nights at the Kit Kat club and even the oddest of Abba songs can’t compete with the world of Dr. Frank-n-Furter.

“It’s such a fun show. I’m loving every moment of this crazy world,” SomerVille says.

SomerVille entered this production with few preconceived notions about how the it would be developed. In fact, she only recently saw the movie version of the show. The actress figures it’s probably pure serendipity that she found herself involved in a stage version of the cult classic only a few months after the film was given to her.

“I had seen clips of it but hadn’t seen the whole film until this year,” SomerVille says. “A friend gave me a copy last Christmas.”

Nevertheless, her audition proved that you don’t need to be a Rocky Horror fanatic to play it right. SomerVille’s floor-writhing audition for the role of Magenta blew director Ted Dykstra away, and through the rehearsal process Somerville has enjoyed discovering the intricacies of the average girl from Transsexual, Transylvania.

SomerVille praises Dykstra for developing the production in a very collaborative fashion, one that has the entire cast discovering the play together, and she hopes audiences will love her time-warping, bird-riding Magenta and all the other fun the show has to offer.

“People are being given the chance to be more free to experience — and we’re the conduits on stage,” she says.

So what’s the most fun about playing Magenta?

“She’s the kind of chick that would love to run down the street and scare the straight-laced neighbours,” she says.