Actor Tim Curry, who was the first performer to play Dr Frank-N-Furter, has been remembered by the cast of the current Broadway production following his death at the age of 80.
Curry died after a long period of illness. Following the 26 August performance of the show, the cast paid tribute to the late actor. Paul Soileau, who currently plays the role on Broadway eight times a week, spoke to the audience during the curtain call to honour Curry’s legacy.
“The role of Frank-N-Furter is a marvellous beast,” Soileau told the audience at Studio 54. “Frank-N-Furter inhabits spaces and sneaks into places, old theatre houses like this, movie theatres, teenagers’ bedrooms…”
Soileau is best known for his drag persona CHRISTEENE. He recently began his run in the revival, taking over the role from Luke Evans. Evans received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for his interpretation of the iconic character.
While many actors have played Frank-N-Furter over the decades, Soileau said they all trace the role’s origins back to Curry.
“The way Frank-N-Furter survives is that he finds vessels and he goes into them and he takes them over and he keeps moving and moving and moving,” he said. “Many people in this room and on this stage have been a vessel for Frank-N-Furter over the years. But if you trace it all back, 53 years ago, there’s one home and one vessel. One mothership that Frank-N-Furter could actually call home, and it’s Tim Curry.”
Curry first played the role in the original 1971 London stage production before reprising the performance for the 1975 film adaptation. During rehearsals for the original production, he experimented with different approaches to the character, who was initially envisaged as a scientist in a white coat. At the suggestion of director Jim Sharman, the character evolved into an alien transvestite with a Belgravia accent.
The musical has enjoyed recurring success in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and many other territories, with performers including Jason Donovan, Craig McLachlan, Anthony Head, Tim McInnerny, Duncan James, Daniel Abineri, David Bedella, and Laverne Cox taking on the role.
Soileau also said that some obituaries describing Curry as never having married or having children overlooked the impact he had on generations of performers and fans.
“Obituaries always say that he didn’t have children. And that’s bullshit,” he said. “Because he has so many children in this world. Tim Curry has more family than I think any of us can even imagine.”
After Soileau finished his speech, he was joined on stage by Luke Evans, who recently completed his run as Frank-N-Furter, and Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, who is due to take over the role next month. Together, they performed one of the show’s closing numbers, Going Home.
Evans also shared publicly that, although he had never met Curry, he wrote to him three weeks before finishing his run in the role, thanking him for creating the character.
“Dear Tim, with only three weeks left before I finally hang up the fishnets and heels, I wanted to send you a note.
“Although we’ve never met, you’ve been part of this journey from the very beginning. Every actor who puts on Frank inevitably walks into a conversation that started with you, and I’ve felt that every single night.
“Being compared to you has been one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received, even though it’s a comparison no one could ever hope to live up to. There is, and always will be, only one Tim Curry.
“I’ve never tried to recreate what you did. That would be impossible. I simply hoped to honour the extraordinary character you brought to life while finding my own way through him.
“As this chapter comes to an end, I just wanted to say thank you. For your fearless performance, for creating something so enduring, and for inspiring generations of actors to be a little bit braver than they thought they could be.” Evans wrote in his letter.
