My First Time at the Rocky Horror Picture Show

I think I was junior in high school when a friend of the family took me to see Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland. Our friend will remain nameless here, as he later became an Oregon legislater. I'd never heard of it before, but he'd heard of it and wanted to see what it was all about, but didn't want to go alone. Both being pretty open people, we were both much more amused than shocked, and we both had a good time.

I don't know if he ever went again, but I saw it a number of times again after that while in college.

Introducing the Boys to RHPS

When we felt our boys were "old enough", we finally introduced them to the show. I bought the DVD and we watched with the participation prompting on ("Throw your toast now"). We started with the audience response track on, but it was too rauckous and the boys couldn't hear the dialogue. Of course, that's the way it was my first time, when I saw it live and couldn't turn the audience off! It was nice, though, to finally hear the whole dialogue for once. Next time we'll play it with the audience responses.

Commedia dell'Arte Archetypes found in Rocky Horror Picture Show

A paper I've wanted to see (or perhaps write myself - someday) is a comparison of the characters in the Rocky Horror Picture Show (here and here) with the stock Commedia dell'Arte characters. This might make an interesting Theatre History paper, or even Movie History, and would examine how the RHPS characters mirror and follow the ancient theatre characters.

For example, the one that caught my attention was Magenta, Frank-n-furter's servant girl. She very obviously echos the Columbina character, who was often the servant girl of the Italian comedies, and often had her fun with various others of the show.

Other examples would be:

  • Frank-n-furter = Harlequin
  • Riff-Raff = Scapino
  • Magenta = Columbina
  • Columbia = a replaced Columbina, and a former Isabella?
  • Brad = Leandro
  • Janet = Isabella
  • Dr. Scott = The Doctor
  • The Weirdos = the Greek chorus

Well, okay, the Greek Chorus isn't really part of dell'Arte, but it is another archetype that could be explored.

back home
Last update: