A transvestite in kinky costume, shocking four-letter words, a
frenzied orgy
– all brought to you courtesy of Gavilan Community College.
A transvestite in kinky costume, shocking four-letter words, a frenzied orgy – all brought to you courtesy of Gavilan Community College.
Of course, if you know I’m describing the recent South Valley theatrical production of “The Rocky Horror Show,” you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about. “Rocky” is a staged musical that proudly stretches the boundaries of social propriety.
I caught the final show last Saturday night and somehow found myself “doing the Time Warp.” Blame it on my Morgan Hill neighbors, Rod and Marion Pintello. “You’ve just got to see it,” Marion insisted. “You’ll have a blast.”
Rod and Marion produce the Pintello Family Comedy Theater. So I figure they of all people must know a thing or two about comedy. Besides, when I was a youngster they use to take me to Sunday school at the First Presbyterian Church in Hollister. Could two upstanding Presbyterians steer me morally wrong?
Little did I know ….
At Gavilan Saturday night, I happened to meet John Brewer, a very talented local actor I know. He happened to be wearing a kilt, black military boots, and a shirt with a yellow smiley face on it. Not exactly attire for the corporate world, I shrewdly observed.
“John, are you performing in the show tonight?” I asked.
“Well, no … Not exactly,” he replied.
Turns out the die-hard “Rocky” fan has seen the 1975 B-movie – a cult classic called “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” – about a gazillion times. Turns out, also, die-hard “Rocky” fans wear the kind of clothes rarely seen at formal functions for, say, the Young Republicans League.
Upon entering Gavilan’s theater, I observed Brewer wasn’t the only one dressed for the occasion. College-age women wore slinky black leather outfits accented with red feather boas. College-age men were similarly dressed. One teenage boy’s face was painted with white make-up and blood-red lipstick – for that fresh-from-the-coffin look.
As for myself … well, I learned from the show’s producer Marilyn Abad-Cardinalli I was, technically-speaking, a “virgin.” That’s what they call first-timers to “Rocky.”
The musical’s plot is straight-forwardly convoluted. Newlyweds Brad and Janet are driving to their honeymoon when their car breaks down one dark and stormy night.
Luckily, the dorky Brad noticed the castle a mile or so back. The innocent couple amble over to telephone for a tow.
The castle belongs to Dr. Frank ‘N’ Furter, a looney transvestite scientist who really loves wearing leather lingerie. Brad and Janet discover the demented doctor has used the body parts from an unfortunate delivery man to build himself a muscle-bound boy toy named “Rocky.”
From there, Brad and Janet are led down a strange series of circumstances – at the end of which they lose their sexual innocence in the most hilarious of happenings.
This is a family newspaper, so I won’t go into details. Let’s just say the “orgy” scene was the funniest orgy scene my virgin eyes have ever seen. (Not that I’ve seen a lot of orgy scenes, mind you. This was, technically speaking, my first.)
The key to the musical’s appeal is the various rituals of audience participation. In his introductory address, show director David John Chavez encouraged audience members to go wild and crazy – within legal limits, of course. And they did.
I made the mistake of sitting right next to Brewer. Throughout the entire show, he and other “Rocky” fanatics shouted at the actors the crudest questions and comments my virgin ears have ever heard. Feeling a bit uncomfortable with the raw language, I began to suspect the theater had just suffered an outbreak of Tourette’s Syndrome.
At one point, cast members came into the aisles and encouraged audience members to do a little dance ditty called “the Time Warp.” And during one exceptionally zany musical number, people began chucking foam-rubber hot dogs at each other. This kind of craziness rarely happens during theatrical performances of, say, “Long Day’s Journey into Night.”
Now from hearing all this, you’re probably beginning to suspect Gavilan College is leading the youth of South Valley into a state of utter moral perversion. If you are, please note that, technically speaking, you’re wrong.
Actually, you gotta blame it on the Greeks. By “Greeks,” I mean the ancient folks in togas who lived in Greece more than 2,500 years ago. See, they had an annual celebration devoted to Dionysus, the god of sex, wine and rock ‘n’ roll.
His followers venerated their deity by getting drunk on wine, singing raunchy songs, having sexual orgies – and watching theatrical productions.
The Dionysian festivals brought Greek communities together to kind of cut loose and go wild and crazy. Historians believe these festivals produced history’s first stage plays.
After Dionysian festival audiences experienced a heavy-duty performance of Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex” or “Antigone” – two very ponderous plays – they needed a pick-me-up. So a hilarious “satyr play” – basically a raunchy sex comedy – followed. Audiences laughed at the ludicrous sexual exploits of actors wearing strapped-on phalluses trying to satisfy their carnal urges.
These comedies involved singing, dancing, sexual depravity – and audience participation. Although, technically speaking, foam-rubber hot dogs weren’t generally thrown by ancient Greek audiences, satyr plays weren’t much different from Gavilan’s “Rocky Horror Show.”
And satyr plays eventually led to the sex comedies of William Shakespeare and Neil Simon.
The Greeks knew a thing or two about human psychology. They understood how repressed sexual desires had unpleasant consequences for a society.
They also realized that releasing these natural human urges through the safety valve of laughter was psychologically healthy for the community. Thus, the sex-themed theatrical productions.
Gavilan’s modern “Rocky Horror Show” probably does the same for the South Valley community. After the “Rocky Horror Show,” I met performer Carroll Briggs, a San
Juan Bautista resident who played the show’s narrator.
“Well …” he asked uncertainly. “Whatcha think?”
“That was definitely the weirdest show I’ve ever seen,” I told him. “And … I had a blast. It was lots of fun.”
Technically speaking … good, clean, wholesome fun.
