The musical "Rocky's Movie Show" is coming to Israel, and it just doesn't look like anything else
Even those who have never watched the cinematic adaptation of "The Rocky Movie Show" from 1975.
Probably aware of the cult status he has gained over the years.
The wonderful news is that this cult is also trickling down to the stage adaptation, which will soon make its way from the West End in London to the Tel Aviv Hall of Culture.
Ido Yeshayahu
13/07/2022
Wednesday, July 13, 2022, 10:09 Updated: 10:10
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Share on Twitter
Share on Email
Share on general
Comments
Comments
Trailer for the musical "The Rocky Movie Show" (PR)
Anyone who has been to the West End in London, or the truth, even just seen a live musical on stage, knows more or less what to expect when he sits down to watch a musical in some theater hall.
Will be colorful, will be bouncy, at best will be overwhelming or exciting or both.
There are those who die for this concept, there are those who dislike the very idea of people bursting into song instead of talking.
Both of these will probably admit that the scale of this medium is quite uniform.
They certainly had not seen the stage version of "The Rocky Movie Show."
For those unfamiliar, "Rocky's Movie Show" tells the story of Janet and Brad, an newlywed couple (played in the movie version by Susan Sarandon and Barry Bozwick).
On their way to the honeymoon their car gets stuck on a stormy night and they enlist the help of the tenants in a nearby gloomy castle.
There they are exposed to a host of bizarre characters led by the owners of the place, a transvestite scientist named Dr. Frank N. Porter. Containing and non-discriminatory in which he treats sexual identity, as required by a work with a trans figure at its center, one that pleases both men and women.
Containing and sleazy space.
The musical "Rocky's Movie Show" (Photo: PR)
A happy and exhilarating monster.
The musical "Rocky's Movie Show" (Photo: PR)
Even those who have never watched a 1975 film - which, as is usually the case in musicals, also started on stage before receiving a film adaptation - are probably aware of the cult status it has gained over the years, and in particular Which is hard to resist.
In Israel, too, this tradition has been enshrined: for 15 years, the film was screened every Friday at midnight at the Kochav Cinema in Ramat Hasharon, with the fans constantly attending costumes, interludes and necessary accessories - like rice to throw in the wedding scene that opens the film, latex gloves and party hats.
Even today, the film is still screened every month in the various cinemas around the country, and the fans still put on their own ceremonies and plays before the screening of the film and at the same time.
As befits a work that has grown from its modest and low-budget original dimensions into a happy and exciting monster, its influence of course also flows into the stage adaptation, and this is the truly wonderful news of the musical
Which will soon make its way from the West End in London to the Tel Aviv Hall of Culture.
An outing to watch it in England as part of a press delegation, yielded one of the most fun and unique experiences we had the pleasure of experiencing.
It was not in a large hall in the West End but in a rather modest space in a town not far away - a sort of local "exemplary" hall, with a typological seat - 666, whose proximity between the audience and the stage contributes to the intimate feeling we are all part of the same happy and sleazy whole.
Everyone applauded as he undressed.
A normative British man in the audience (Photo: Walla !, Ido Yeshayahu)
Mesh stockings and attitude (Photo: Walla !, Ido Yeshayahu)
And so, one Friday in late June, the audience gathered at the Cambridge Arts Theater, with large sections of it dressed in the best of the minimalist tradition of the "Rocky Movie Show" - fishnet stockings, garters, corsets, generous cleavages and not much beyond them.
Someone behind us, kind and innocent-looking, walked into the place in decent clothes, and then when he got to his seat he took off his button-down shirt and tailored pants, left only with black underwear and tights to the applause of the surrounding crowd.
In the line in front of us, the right side was filled with doubles of the main characters in the musical - someone in a huge black wig like Magenta, someone in a bald spot like her brother Riff-Ruff and so on.
Of course, even throughout the show itself the audience is an active participant.
Calls Janet "Slat" and Brad "Asshol", equipped with all the necessary items.
From the very first minutes, when the huge hit "Time Warp" arrives, everyone in attendance gets up and a whole wave of people jumps to the left, takes a step to the right, puts his hands on his pelvis, presses his knees forward, and then waves his hands in the air again - which is just wonderful.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Cambridge Arts Theater (@cambridgeartstheatre)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Jess / Dorian?
(@vampireofversailles)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by raven?
(@rockyhorroraven)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Alex Olivia Jones (@alexoliviajones)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Noemi Arfuso (@noemiarfuso)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Alice Esme (@ alicegreenacre23)
Posters in the UK promote the cast of the current adaptation through the only one of them known to the local population - TV presenter and actor Ora Oduba, whose fame came when he won the local (and original) version of "Dancing with the Stars" several years ago.
In the play he does a good job in both acting and singing, like the whole cast, but the one who rises above them all, properly, is Stephen Webb, who plays Frank.
The man is a walking charisma, a showy peacock with a twinkle in his eye that is hard to miss even from the back rows.
He turns the character of the hero from Transylvania into a magnetizing, funny and entertaining entity that is very easy to understand why and how he swept all who followed him through the gates of his castle.
Sorry for the boldness, but Webb does it much better than the iconic Matt Curry, who played him in the film.
It's hard to know how this party will go in a big, generational place like the Tel Aviv Hall of Culture, but one can cautiously guess that the magic of "Rocky's Cinema Show" will manage to dominate the 2,500 seats as well and lift the audience away.
Local fans will no doubt not want to miss this event, and if it's already here, then we'll definitely do Time Throw again.
The character of the criminologist, the man who tells the story of the act, is played in the UK by Philip Frank, a veteran British actor and director, studying death and television and yet quite anonymous.
The 66-year-old, respectable-looking man was the main target of repeated remarks from the audience, and in response to them he displayed dry British wit and very impressive improvisational abilities.
True, most of them are regular mantras in the active screenings, but others clearly caught him unprepared and made him swallow laughter to the best of his ability, and yet answer them well.
Throughout the show most of the cast stood bravely in jokes and replicas thrown at them from the audience, and yet there were also breaking moments, and as is the case with such, they are particularly funny.
More on Walla!
Comedy of Success: The Five Years That Changed Harrison Ford's Life
To the full article
Better than Matt Curry.
Stephen Webb as Dr. Frank v. Turner
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Stephen Webb (@ stephenwebb1983)
Frank will not come to Israel with the British cast, but will be replaced here by none other than the designer and singer Yuval Caspin, who will tell the story of the act in the sacred language, and will have to deal with this difficult task of maintaining a professional and dignified appearance alongside amusing comments.
In a phone call with Caspin, he tells Walla!
Culture because it is a production choice in the first place: "Open up to me the option of answering the audience freely even beyond the written text."
Caspin himself is well acquainted with "The Rocky Movie Show" and the cult around it.
"When I was 19, every Saturday we would go to the Paris cinema with rice in bags," he says, "and I would sit in the last row so I could throw rice but not have rice put in my shirt, God forbid. But we would go every Saturday, every Saturday, it's Was crazy.At the time I knew half of the text by heart.
The whole family is devastated at "The Rocky Movie Show."
Yuval Caspin (Photo: Courtesy of those photographed)
"What I was amazed at was discovering over the years that it was being shown at a star cinema in Ramat Hasharon, and I was told it was a crazy experience, guys my age who could have been my children. "For the whole family, it seems to me. My cousins are going to go the whole family - the father, the mother and the children and the grandchildren."
Will they come in costumes?
"I do not think they will come in costumes, I have exhausted the costume section in my family, I think. But they are devastated about it. The parents are devastated about it, the children are devastated about it and the grandchildren are going to learn it."
Is there anything you would like to convey to fans in Israel before all this happens?
"I'm so excited I'm going to do it for the first time. Too bad they can 't throw rice at me this time."
The musical "Rocky's Movie Show" will be staged at the Hall of Culture from August 22-27.
Tickets can be purchased here.
The writer was a guest of the show's production in Israel (producer Moshe Yosef).
culture
in what
theater
Tags
Rocky's movie show
