‘The Rocky Horror Show’ Broadway Review: Kitschy Cult Classic Returns Without the Shock, Danger and Fun

By Frank Rizzo

Frank Rizzo

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“Enjoy the show. Don’t be an asshole,”

While it’s not your typical musical theater greeting, “The Rocky Horror Show” is not your typical show. It’s one that is flamboyantly abnormal and anarchical and one that famously thrives on enthusiastic audience engagement and interplay — but only up to a point (as the pre-show warning suggests. No projectiles, please.)

That makes this Broadway revival of the ‘70s cult musical — the granddaddy of all experiential shows — fit right in with the wave of end-of-season, party-hearty shows. But this Roundabout production at Studio 54 — the site of glittering debauchery of another era — just isn’t all that much fun, being mostly effortful, maddening and finally exhausting.

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