Laver’s Law: The same dress can be known as “indecent” ten years before its time, “daring” a year before its time.  Then it becomes “chic” and in two or three years, “dowdy.”  It is considered “hideous” twenty years later, “quaint” in thirty years, and a hundred and fifty years later it is “beautiful.”

This may be true of all art.  There’s an independent life cycle for artistry.  When a piece (play, movie, painting, dance, whatever) is created, it’s like a newborn baby or a fledgling relationship.  No history.  No connotations.  Like dead air on talk radio, waiting for the conversation to begin.

It’s at this beginning that artists (actors, choreographers, whatever) can do anything they want with a piece.  It can go any direction, towards any idea, use any color you want.  Viewed independently of messy things like the history of art, it’s like operating in a vacuum.  Or playing in a sandbox.  Build it up and change it in any way.  No critic is likely to complain that it isn’t like it should’ve been.

Once it’s out there, though, the piece becomes part of a dialogue between the artist and the audience.  The reaction of the audience is half (or more) of its importance.  This conversation starts to shape those connotations and history in uncontrollable directions.  Essentially, art is public relations.

In this way, Performance One of a piece is substantially different than all subsequent performances.  Every later viewing (or hearing) gets weighted with an audience’s expectations and prejudices.  If it’s a good piece, you better not start messing around with it.  It had better be pretty much just like Performance One.  That’s one reason The Rocky Horror Picture Show, released in 1975, was fairly true to the original Rocky Horror Show, with Performance One in 1973, even though certain things still were changed.  And then the conversation really went in unexpected directions.

After a while, art can become iconic.  With Rocky Horror, strangely, it’s the movie – the derivative piece – that became more famous.  (Compare this to other musicals like Rent.)  Things that are popular and well-received become classic and untouchable.

This eventually changes, however, and artists and performers feel free to monkey with the classics without (much) fear of audience backlash.  For example, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival regularly screws around with The Bard – and who’s complaining?  Those plays are 400 years old.  Even Rocky Horror has gotten to a place in culture where it’s regularly bastardized.  Or so I thought.

“Technically, there’s plenty that could be better, but then it wouldn’t be what it is.” – Jim Sharman

Which is part of the reason I was a little surprised, I guess, that I got frustrated at Theatre UAB‘s performance of The Rocky Horror Show – the musical, not the movie.  It’s the movie that I’ve probably seen twenty times.  I’d never seen the musical before the other night.  And I admit that my expectations – weighted down with all that connotation and history – impeded my full and unfettered satisfaction.  I’ve never wanted to yell out inappropriate things and throw rice so bad in all my life.  It’s a specific kind of reaction when you expect one thing, but get another.  Does this make me a closeted theater conservative because I want it to stay the same?  Or a hip progressive, because I like the newest version the best?  Ah well, I’ll get it all out on the 29th at the Alabama Theatre.

“I thought you liked them.  They liked you.”

Well, it’s definitely not you, Theatre UAB, it’s me.  My virgin date, unburdened with expectations, enjoyed it free of this kind of frustration.  *sigh*  Especially nice here were Leisa Thomas as both a good-singing Usherette (“Lips“) and good-haired Magenta, Noah Holcomb as a lively, menacing Riff Raff, Alana Jordan in full squeakichirpiosity as Columbia, and James York as a surprisingly funny Rocky.  Also, props to the band (Derek Jackson, Pierce Coward, Taylor Propp, Carlos Pino, Yaeger Smith, and Gary Wheat) who were every bit as well-mixed into the show as anything happening over at Virginia Samford.  And kudos to the way the cast and crew handled the minor technical gaffes (strobe lights and apples) on the night I watched.

Thank yous to Mel Christian, to Theatre UAB, and to the pretty usher who frisked me down for water pistols, toilet paper, and toast.