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Rocky's second weekend (and third performance) was at the Strand Theater in Lakewood NJ where we performed last year. I had to be there much earlier than the cast so I got a ride with our sound and lighting designers. Smartly I brought along a pillow and just craaaashed in the back seat--slept all the way to Hoboken and woke up marvelously refreshed, especially once Dave brought me a huge thing of coffee! We teched and had our dress rehearsal and then enjoyed dinner (sandwiches and soda). At one point we started talking about sex tips and I ended up reading to my cast from a Jezebel article on terrible sex tips from Cosmo. We were fucking DYING, the whole cast was completely cracking up.
Last year at the Strand was a rather quiet show for several reasons, the main being that it was the day of that freak snowstorm in late October. This depressed turnout and small houses tend to be quieter. NOT THIS TIME. OH MY GOD. They came prepared to PAR-TaY. There was a group, about 2-3 rows, who had pre-gamed, gamed during the show, and continued to game during intermission! And they were LOUD. Mad, mad props to Jen and Tim who suffered constant callouts and managed to stay very focused and in their moment. I'd worked with them, saying you will get tons of shit during those last scenes, don't let it throw you. (And there are some truly hilarious shoutouts during Super Heroes. My favorite one is during Brad's emo verse:
I've done a lot (of anal sex)
God knows I've tried (anal sex)
To tell the truth (about anal sex)
I've even lied (about having anal sex)
But all I know (about anal sex)
Is deep inside I'm blee-ee-ding (.......from anal sex)
But I told them--don't let it throw you. Stay in your moment, stay in your beat--you will have earned it, and there will be those in the audience who appreciate it.
Because I didn't want to do your standard let's-just-throw-this-onto-the-stage Rocky. Super Heroes was always my favorite song--I found it so haunting and melancholy--and I decided between that and the music box quality of the reprise of Science Fiction, Double Feature, that the show underwent a major tonal change in those last two numbers. And I didn't want to waste that, or the other interesting stuff in the text. And this was my "vision," if you will, of Rocky: first, as I discussed before, I noticed a theme of observation and voyeurism. They're always watching each other on monitors, and the Narrator watches them, and the opening number is about watching movies. So I decided to expand this and add what I called Voyeur (or Observer) Phantoms, and assigned them specific shoutouts, and the opening number was staged according to this theme--binoculars, 3-D glasses, remotes, etc. and I had various slides on the slide screen of eyes watching at various times. Now what is the flip side of voyeurism? Exhibitionism, of which Frank is the quintessence. I talked to the cast about the observer effect, and how we all act differently when we know we're being watched--which led me to Janet and Touch-a Me. It took me FOREVER to figure out what I wanted to do with that number--it was the last one I staged, I kept telling the girls just give me a few days, it's percolating. Finally I figured it out--Jen KNOWS she's being watched, she figures it out when she watches Brad on the monitor. And that's why she decides to hell with it, I'm going to jump off the pedestal (yes, I literally had her on a pedestal) and embrace this journey--and so Magenta and Columbia are cheering her on, not mocking her.
This led me to the floor show which is where Janet really blossoms--she sings:
I feel released
Bad times deceased
My confidence has increased
What does Brad sing?
It's beyond me
Help me, Mommy
I'll be good, you'll see
Take this dream away
With all that, and tying into the theme of observation and voyeurism, I decided to take a side trip into exploring the fine line between art appreciation and objectification--a dynamic that usually targets women, but in RHS, our eponymous character himself is the objet d'art who is objectified (and yes, I had him up on the pedestal as well). I underscored this mainly with slides of Greek and Renaissance male sculptures, plus I had Rocky executing classical art poses on the pedestal during Charles Atlas. (Also at the beginning of The Sword of Damocles, when Frank first touches him, I posed them as God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling--appropriate since Frank is the creator of life. I also found out that the real Charles Atlas himself used to pose for sculptors!) At first the Phantoms are in awe of his beauty but rapidly they start pawing him, and taking pictures with their cell phone, and slipping bills into his trunks. It's a fine, fine line...
Last year at the Strand was a rather quiet show for several reasons, the main being that it was the day of that freak snowstorm in late October. This depressed turnout and small houses tend to be quieter. NOT THIS TIME. OH MY GOD. They came prepared to PAR-TaY. There was a group, about 2-3 rows, who had pre-gamed, gamed during the show, and continued to game during intermission! And they were LOUD. Mad, mad props to Jen and Tim who suffered constant callouts and managed to stay very focused and in their moment. I'd worked with them, saying you will get tons of shit during those last scenes, don't let it throw you. (And there are some truly hilarious shoutouts during Super Heroes. My favorite one is during Brad's emo verse:
I've done a lot (of anal sex)
God knows I've tried (anal sex)
To tell the truth (about anal sex)
I've even lied (about having anal sex)
But all I know (about anal sex)
Is deep inside I'm blee-ee-ding (.......from anal sex)
But I told them--don't let it throw you. Stay in your moment, stay in your beat--you will have earned it, and there will be those in the audience who appreciate it.
Because I didn't want to do your standard let's-just-throw-this-onto-the-stage Rocky. Super Heroes was always my favorite song--I found it so haunting and melancholy--and I decided between that and the music box quality of the reprise of Science Fiction, Double Feature, that the show underwent a major tonal change in those last two numbers. And I didn't want to waste that, or the other interesting stuff in the text. And this was my "vision," if you will, of Rocky: first, as I discussed before, I noticed a theme of observation and voyeurism. They're always watching each other on monitors, and the Narrator watches them, and the opening number is about watching movies. So I decided to expand this and add what I called Voyeur (or Observer) Phantoms, and assigned them specific shoutouts, and the opening number was staged according to this theme--binoculars, 3-D glasses, remotes, etc. and I had various slides on the slide screen of eyes watching at various times. Now what is the flip side of voyeurism? Exhibitionism, of which Frank is the quintessence. I talked to the cast about the observer effect, and how we all act differently when we know we're being watched--which led me to Janet and Touch-a Me. It took me FOREVER to figure out what I wanted to do with that number--it was the last one I staged, I kept telling the girls just give me a few days, it's percolating. Finally I figured it out--Jen KNOWS she's being watched, she figures it out when she watches Brad on the monitor. And that's why she decides to hell with it, I'm going to jump off the pedestal (yes, I literally had her on a pedestal) and embrace this journey--and so Magenta and Columbia are cheering her on, not mocking her.
This led me to the floor show which is where Janet really blossoms--she sings:
I feel released
Bad times deceased
My confidence has increased
What does Brad sing?
It's beyond me
Help me, Mommy
I'll be good, you'll see
Take this dream away
So with that in mind, I couldn't stage Super Heroes any other way than how I did--after Janet's verse, during the long ah-ah section, I had her turn and look wonderingly at the castle as Brad reaches a tentative hand out to her. He just wants to go back to the way things were. He wants to forget it ever happened. But as Thelma says "something's, like, crossed over in me and I can't go back." Janet can't go back; she's not that Janet anymore. So I staged it that she walks away from him--this is what made some of the cast gasp. I didn't think it was that big a deal--as I said, it's all right there in the text, I can't be the only one who's staged it that way--but I heard an audience member gasp as well and Eric (our Riff Raff) said it was "brilliant." And Tesse made me so happy--she said who ever saw a RHS where Janet actually experiences character growth? Feminine empowerment through sexuality--which was a huge thing in the '70s, the birth of the feminist movement, and of course RHS is very much a product of the '70s! I love my sexually empowered, strong-ass Janet! Jen approved as well--she specifically told me she liked the feminist Janet :) And she played that moment beautifully, with this look of regret and resolve and love and goodbye all at once. Jen's such a great actor.
With all that, and tying into the theme of observation and voyeurism, I decided to take a side trip into exploring the fine line between art appreciation and objectification--a dynamic that usually targets women, but in RHS, our eponymous character himself is the objet d'art who is objectified (and yes, I had him up on the pedestal as well). I underscored this mainly with slides of Greek and Renaissance male sculptures, plus I had Rocky executing classical art poses on the pedestal during Charles Atlas. (Also at the beginning of The Sword of Damocles, when Frank first touches him, I posed them as God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling--appropriate since Frank is the creator of life. I also found out that the real Charles Atlas himself used to pose for sculptors!) At first the Phantoms are in awe of his beauty but rapidly they start pawing him, and taking pictures with their cell phone, and slipping bills into his trunks. It's a fine, fine line...
