The Rocky Horror Show

Out of the blue, I got invitation for the theatre - someone got sick, so my friends thought I might enjoy this particular show. It turned out to be a Dutch version of "The Rocky Horror Show" but I was so thrilled to be in live performance again that I would have gladly go on Swahili version. The doors were open only for the people with official proof of Corona vaccination and mine luckily was working for that particular day, since it was exactly two weeks from my second vaccination - I have actually vaccinated exactly for these kinds of situations, this was the logic behind my thinking, I didn't want to be excluded from anything that the rest of humanity can do. If this allows me to travel, to mingle and to check in theatres and cinemas, I'm fine with that.

I noticed already that people waiting in the line were extremely colourful - many of them came wearing all sorts of costumes (nurses, hot pants with net stockings, etc) and were obviously great fans of the show. I only vaguely remembered the 1975. movie with a very young Susan Sarandon and could name a song or two, but that was it. What mattered more to me was the fact that finally, after such a long time I am inside the theatre and watching live performance again - friends told me this is normally home for the very serious stage plays, but tonight it was out-and-out camp musical with fanatical cult following. 

To say that everybody was in a good mood would have been an understatement - people felt the importance of the situation, that we are all finally allowed to mingle mask-less inside the crowded, sold out theatre. The sensation was not exactly pleasant because it has been a long time since I was in such a crowd and it felt almost a little too crowded to me, almost as I forgot how it is to be in a room full of people, where every single seat was taken.

 

The show was fine - it was all in Dutch but they sang roughly half of the songs in English and naturally nothing made any sense to me because the plot is so ridiculous that later I had to go online to read what exactly happened and who was that killed with a chainsaw. There was a huge energy in the beginning, where each character had a solo spot and audience was going wild, repeating themselves exactly what they saw on stage (apparently they all came prepared and had all the gadgets with them) - I felt that curiously the energy dropped a bit towards the end of the show, like it was impossible to keep such a high level of frenzy all the time. Or maybe it was just the story itself that was turning darker and less celebratory. No matter, I was thrilled to be part of it, except that in such situations I am more a observer than participant - I never was someone who talks or sings or whoops during the performances - but maybe next time I would be better prepared and would put the newspaper on top of my head in exact right moment, who knows?