ABSTRACT
“The Time Warp” represents an extreme example of how song and dance can bend and even break normative narratives in musical theater. Musical numbers often warp time by speeding it up or slowing it down, emphasizing repetition and circularity, dipping into memory, and projecting. Richard O’Brien’s stage musical The Rocky Horror Show met with critical and popular acclaim when it premiered at the in-yer-face Royal Court Upstairs in London in 1973. As Guardian critic Michael Billington recalls, audience members “had nowhere to hide from the sex and violence that inevitably loomed large” in this intimate space, and the crowd’s visceral involvement in the show contributed to Rocky Horror’s early success. The Rocky Horror Picture Show may have had its midnight premiere on April Fool’s Day of 1976, but in some parts of the world more recently, the movie has become closely associated with the carnivalesque, costumed culture of Halloween.
