JEFFREY ARUNDEL RALPH
22 October 1956—17 February 2005
ASCENSION
by Matthew Yenkala
One of the things that brings people back to THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, time and again, is the myriad extremely colorful and unique individuals that one meets there. Here we would like to pay tribute to one of them, a gentleman by the name of Jeff Ralph.
Jeff first came to our attention as an audience member in the Spring of 2004. Lean, balding, and bearded, he cut a strange and instantly recognizable figure on the dance floor before the show—like a time-displaced hippie, or a No-Doz popping beatnik. He quickly became an audience favourite and seemed totally at ease with the fact that "the kids call me 'the crazy old guy'". Although approaching 50, Jeff described himself as "NEARLY an adult!" Indeed, he had an almost childlike quality, and yet was clearly an “old soul”—resulting in a sense of both agelessness and timelessness.
He came to the show dressed in a Trannie outfit several weeks in a row, and it wasn't long before he turned in an application to join the cast (though if he hadn’t, we would have recruited him anyway!). When asked how he would benefit the cast if hired, he cited his vocal skills and his years of experience and training in dance and acting—activities which he said brought him "exercise, fun & emotional healing". He went on to list his other qualifications and reasons for wanting to be involved:
"The thrill of performing. I do love attention! Spending time with my 'tribe' (performers). Sharing my silent, loving presence. I can be VERY offensive (but am tough to offend!) High energy dancing. Willing, experienced take-down worker. Automatically funny. Sweetheart. Token straight guy. Creative. Loud. Tech savvy. People like me because I make them like me. Natural performer. Realistic. Wise. Depressingly reliable and responsible. I’ve outgrown 'drama'. And I'm inspired!"
How could we refuse? He was quickly hired and became a member of Broadway Bound & Gagged during the summer months of 2004.
Upon his acceptance into our "tribe", Jeff wrote to me:
"Thanks again, to you et al, for your kind welcome. As a born member of (what I call) the 'performer tribe', your welcoming is especially sweet. It fills a need that I didn't know was so strong in me. It occurred to me today that non-performer-tribespeople...just look at me strangely...they're entertained by me, but they don't really relate. So, I feel more at home, more 'met', by you all, my tribespeople. Thanks for that...words fail me."
In addition to performing as a Transylvanian and audience-booster, he joined us on our now-legendary road trip to Los Angeles (more on that below). However, as the Summer of 2004 wore on, his charisma and energy seemed more suited to the audience rather than to the cast, and we parted professional company with goodwill shortly thereafter. He gave his final performances for us with our presentation of CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL in September 2004.
The thing most people remember about Jeff is his presence on the dance floor. “Apparently, I'm unknowingly entertaining the cast with my dancing,” he wrote to me before he even applied to join the cast. Completely unselfconscious, Jeff simply “went for it” during the pre-show dancing, as well as during those parts of the movie where dancing was encouraged (such as THE TIME WARP). His style was completely his own—and yet seemed strangely akin to that of our “Riff Raff” performer Ezra Niesen (who was swiftly dubbed Jeff’s “long lost son”—spiritually, if not biologically).
Jeff had an incredible energy and enthusiasm. He was charmingly eccentric, very charismatic, and an extremely dynamic, larger than life personality. But there was a great deal of depth to him as well. Beneath the “eccentric old guy” exterior was a very insightful and profoundly spiritual being.
And while the dance seemed to be his biggest passion and mode of self-expression, Jeff was involved in a wide assortment of varied but overlapping causes, activities and scenes, many of them of the local artist/bohemian stripe—not only dance, but other artistic, theatrical and performance troupes, along with assorted Pagan/New Age metaphysical interests.
Jeff had an altruist’s concern for the welfare of the human race; he found the spiritual and cultural darkness that seems to have been gradually falling on the world in the last few years deeply troubling. Yet his nature was irrefutably optimistic, and his spiritual outlook was prone to hope, not despair. He once wrote to me:
"I'd be honored to attempt the impossible task of describing my 'spiritual path' sometime, when we have relaxed time. No, I don't mean to preach or convert. I don't think I can ‘save’ you, or that you need ‘saving’; if you DO need that, only you can do it, anyway. It's just that you asked, and the ineffable is a fun subject to play in. (I write ‘play in’, since any ‘serious’ effort is doomed to laughably absurd failure, as real Truth is indescribable... not that It needs to be described!)"
Nowhere was this more in evidence than following my post to the cast about the return home from our abovementioned cast road trip to California last summer (it can be read here), during which our security chief, Gerald, literally saved the lives of about a dozen people. Following this, Jeff responded:
"Thanks for letting me join you in your experience of your ‘Vision Quest with Ger’...I got teary-eyed, too. I love seeing such expressions of love...including his efforts, others' acceptance of it, and your expression of appreciation. Yay! :-)) [Gerald's very modest and humble] reply just confirms what you wrote about the quality of the ‘place from which he perceives his experiences’.”
We last saw Jeff at the show around Halloween. In the final months of 2004 and into 2005 he was becoming increasingly involved with all his various groups and had begun to dabble in the world of theatrical critique. He once told me that he’d been a shut in for a year before “coming out”, and that ROCKY helped him tremendously in this process. ROCKY tends to be a haven and “coming out” ritual for misfit youth, particularly those in their teens; but there’s certainly room for those "extended adolescents" whose youth remains with them throughout their life, as it did with Jeff. For the part ROCKY played in his maintaining his sense of self, I shall forever be honored.
According to coworkers, Jeff was quite the Night Owl: "It’s not unusual to be saying good morning to him as he is actually leaving the office for the day." So it is perhaps fitting that he left us during the night hours, by all accounts slipping away peacefully in his sleep. Jeff Ralph passed from this life into the next on February 17, 2005.
This is something of a personal eulogy; but I can offer no other. I spent my birthday in Jeff's company on September 2nd, 2004. He took me to see the play "Poona the Fuckdog" (wonderful) and afterwards, we did indeed get to share aspects of one another's views on Life, the Universe, and Everything—not only did our views complement one another, but some of the things he had to say truly opened me up to avenues of thought and possibility that I had **never** considered. He showed me great kindness and generosity—and respect. He made it clear that he believed in me, in what I had accomplished, and in what I had the potential to become.
I remain incredibly grateful for the wisdom, insight, and advice he shared with me—and that he cared enough to go out of his way to take the time to share it. His encouragement has been a major source of inspiration in the months since. In hindsight, while my interaction with him was far, far too brief, it was momentous, and has had a profound and even life-changing, impact on me, and will continue to do so for the rest of my days. I consider myself privileged to have known him, however fleetingly. ,
Ultimately, Jeff embodied the one concept that has driven ME to do everything I do, with ROCKY HORROR and everything else: the idea of Genuine Love. And in his passing, Jeff is continuing to bring people together—friends of his who did not know each other before, but who certainly will now. This is a beautiful thing, and something he no doubt is applauding from the other side.
When I heard that Jeff was gone, I could only think of one thing--the ending of the movie "Powder". If you've seen it, you get it. For though the old clichés of “he’s out of pain”, “he’s in a better place” may drive the cynical to roll their eyes, I in my naively sentimental way choose to believe that Jeff is indeed still out there, somewhere, in some form, and able to carry on his positive energy without the burdens and limitations of the material world; and I think he will continue to do so until he is called elsewhere.
But for those of us who knew him in the here and now, the loss is staggering, and he will be sadly, sorely missed.
Thanks for the “Hero Year”, Jeff. Farewell…until our next meeting.
Matthew M. Yenkala
26 February 2005
An online memorial group for Jeff can be found here.
