The last time I was part of “The Rocky Horror Show,” I wore a black corset. Two decades later at Oasis and Ray of Light Theatre’s latest immersive revival of Richard O’Brien’s beloved 1973 stage musical at Oasis nightclub, I wore a white bridal veil. 

Having traded my libertine youth for a happy married life years ago, the symbolism felt fitting.

Back in college, I played the lead of provocative mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter, originated by Tim Curry. On Saturday, Oct. 11, during opening weekend of the South of Market venue’s final full production before closing at the end of the year, I was pulled on stage for the part of Betty Monroe (If the character doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because she’s only in a few seconds of the show and 1975 film.) Reading my vows alongside Tim Budding, the audience member enlisted to play the groom, Ralph Hapschatt, reminded me once you’re a part of the “Rocky” family, that connection remains. 

For anyone who knows the show about the Transexual Transylvanians who ensnare, seduce and morally liberate the square Brad and Janet (played here by Julio Chavez and Lisa Frankenstein), family might not be the word that comes to mind. But that’s what this production, and the entire global “Rocky” fandom can feel like. 

While the original London stage show was an unexpected hit, the film adaptation — starring Curry, O’Brien, Little Nell Campbell, Patricia Quinn and Meatloaf reprising their roles, alongside Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon as Brad and Janet — was a mainstream flop. 

By 1976, however, it found a following at Waverly Theater in New York City, where midnight screenings featured “shadow casts” recreating scenes as audiences shouted back in response to the dialogue. Long before Oasis owner — and veteran Dr. Frank-N-Furter — D’Arcy Drollinger had the idea of reimagining “Rocky” for the club, audience participation was already a key part of any viewing. 

As the film celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, its legacy is being reevaluated. When I performed in my college production, the musical wasn’t always taken seriously. It was seen as camp (it is), vulgar (ditto) and unserious (wrong!). But underneath the sexual anarchy, it’s always been about outsiders searching for belonging, and generations have found that sense of community at “Rocky” screenings and revivals around the world.

“I think people can be dismissive of it because they don’t know where it came from and they don’t know the history,” director Jason Hoover told me. “It’s like the history of Oasis; ‘Rocky’ offered a safe haven for people to be who they want to be.”

Quinn, who famously played Magenta onstage and in the film, shared the same sentiment with me in an interview last year. 

“Years ago at a convention, a girl came up to me with tears in her eyes. She had an arm that was disabled, and she said, ‘This film has changed my life,’” Quinn recalled. “And that’s the first time it ever meant anything to me. It obviously meant that she was accepted in the crowd.”

After the “Rocky” wedding scene on Saturday, the audience was ushered to the main stage. Among a crowd where many were dressed as characters from the show, it was hard to differentiate actors from audience members. Sitting on a couch near the stage, I asked actor Trixxie Carr if she was the “real” Magenta when she draped herself across me before realizing that yes, she was indeed playing the role.  

Although it’s been years since I’ve been to a live production, the callbacks to the dialogue quickly returned to me. I’m generally not an audience participation person, but “Rocky” is the exception. I danced the “Time Warp” and got a (chaste) lapdance in the bathroom from a gogo girl. The only time I drew the line was eating a hot dog handed to me from a gloryhole, because I’m a vegetarian. 

By the time we reached the finale, I was singing along to the show’s central anthem, “Don’t Dream It, Be It.” It was emotional revisiting those lyrics. I’ve gotten to live so many of the dreams I had as that college kid in a corset, including finding a place like Oasis where I could be part of a weird, wonderful community. 

But with the club closing on New Year’s Eve, that dream is coming to an end. 

Clips of past Oasis and Ray of Light “Rocky” productions played as Drollinger sang the ballad “I’m Going Home.” Cheetah Biscotti as Columbia and Ryan Patrick Welsh as the Criminologist brought me to the piano beside Drollinger where I joined in on the chorus. I was grateful this place — and this show — had been a home for so many. 

At the end, Drollinger and the cast surrounded me on the couch. 

“It’s breaking my heart every night,” he whispered to me about the impact the show is having on him during this run through Nov. 1.

My heart was breaking too, but in a beautiful way. Some people never get to find their “Rocky” or Oasis, but I found both.

If you look at James Yeun Leong Parry’s resume, one interpretation is that things start to go off the rails around 2018. That’s when, after stints at fine-dining restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs in Hong Kong, London, Tokyo and San Francisco, he left Benu for a position at Palette Tea House. 

No disrespect to Palette, a high-volume restaurant in Ghirardelli Square that traffics in newfangled dim sum, such as taro puff swans, their lacy bodies blackened with charcoal, and har gow skewered with pipettes of lobster butter sauce. But a certain breed of ambitious chef would note that it has three fewer Michelin stars than Benu. (Which is to say, none.) Parry’s pivot is the equivalent of a violinist leaving the symphony to take up the fiddle with a bluegrass band.

Now, with three years as head chef at Palette under his belt and several more running successful tasting menu popups, Parry has struck out on his own. After months of frothy anticipation, the Happy Crane opened in August in Hayes Valley. A modern Chinese restaurant, it sings the greatest hits from Hong Kong (where Parry spent much of his youth), Beijing, Chongqing and beyond with a California accent. It’s the opening salvo of a chef with a point of view, and a welcome addition to the city’s contemporary Asian culinary scene.

It’s possible to engage with the Happy Crane’s menu on multiple levels, depending on your familiarity with — or desire to be educated about — Chinese cuisine. An appetizer of a split bao, griddled in brown butter and topped with chicken liver mousse and thinly sliced coppa ($11 per piece), could conceivably be at home in a New American restaurant serving deviled eggs and an heirloom tomato salad. But the curious might ask about the name of the dish, “golden coin,” which is a reference to the esoteric Cantonese snack gum tsin gai, or gold coin chicken. Originating as sustenance for the working class, it was a way for roast meat specialists to sell char siu offcuts, pork fat and chicken livers, all stacked on a skewer, glazed with sticky-sweet sauce then served sandwiched in a bun.

The staff at the Happy Crane, while gregarious, are not walking encyclopedias. They might mention that an entrée of fish-fragrant fish featuring local lingcod ($48) is a cheeky nod to fish-fragrant eggplant, a dish that contains no fish whatsoever, but they’re far from pedants. Unless you drive the conversation, you might not learn about the braising technique applied to the beef shin ($18), or jiang niu rou, a process whereby the meat is babied for nine hours in master stock. This flavor-packed liquid, a sweetened mix of soy and shiaoxing wine infused with spices and aromatics, shares common ground with a sourdough mother or sherry aged using the solera method: After each braise, the master stock is saved and topped up, a never-ending continuum of flavor that will, presumably, only get better as the Happy Crane gets older.

What results is an impossibly tender and savory cut of beef that, thinly sliced and still rosy in the center, is what roast beef wishes it could be. Parry then gives it a mala xiang guo treatment, dressing it with a Sichuan peppercorn vinaigrette and plating it with some vegetables that are commonly found in dry hot pot (celtuce, fried lotus root) and some that decidedly aren’t (last month, creamy confited artichoke hearts). It’s a masterpiece.

The same consideration for balance — crunch meeting softness, acid tempering richness — is evident in the char siu pork jowl ($43). Glistening with its maltose glaze, the sweet, fatty roast pork begs for something sharp and structured. Parry pairs it with shaved raw fennel — mirroring the licoricey notes in the five-spiced marinade — and intense, translucent crescents of green apple that are infused, under vacuum pressure, with lime juice and ginger. I’d like to keep a jar of those pickled apple slices in my fridge to munch on whenever I need to feel alive.

Parry’s attention to texture is so dialed in for his most successful dishes that the ones that fall short come as genuine surprises. A saucy crab rice roll ($32) made with steamed rice noodles that are milled in house should have been a triumph, but the cheung fun was frail, lacking chew and integrity. And the main crunch came not from the celery but, unfortunately, bits of crab shell. 

Whether fair or not, diners will want to know where to mentally situate the Happy Crane among San Francisco’s other titans of modern Chinese cuisine; I look forward to a time when, like Cal-Italian restaurants, there are so many excellent examples that we no longer have to play them off one another. On the casual-to-swank spectrum, it falls solidly in between Four Kings and Mister Jiu’s — both on our list of the top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area. It’s a date night or pre-theater spot where the service is informal and, although a tasting option exists ($120 per person), the menu does not aspire to fine-dining pageantry. 

Parry’s time in exacting, three-star kitchens is evident — the knife work, the plating, the wink-wink cleverness — even in humble stir fries and smacked cucumber salads. Kate Moss without makeup still has cheekbones. But I, for one, am grateful he chose a less buttoned-up road. I don’t dislike a tasting menu, but that $18 beef shin deserves to be eaten by everyone.

451 Gough St., San Francisco. thehappycranesf.com

Hours: 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible, no outdoor seating

Meal for two, without drinks: $125-$240 (for the “happy as a crane” tasting menu, which is $120 per person)

What to order: Ginger scallion scallop ($18); beef shin ($18); golden coin ($11 per piece); oyster pancake ($28); char siu pork jowl ($43); Peking duck service ($110, by preorder); mango sago sorbet ($14)

Meat-free options: Smacked cucumber and smoked figs ($14); snap pea dumplings ($7 per piece); maitake biang biang noodles ($36)

Drinks: Spend some quality time with the drink menu, which features gorgeous original artwork by Parry’s sister, Yolande Lui Parry. Creative cocktails ($17-$20) with housemade cordials incorporate Asian flavors; try the Serpent’s Kiss, which layers miso and hot mustard atop an agave base, but skip the too salty non-alcoholic Flying Nimbus. A couple Taiwanese beers and a dozen or so wines by the glass, with Advanced Sommelier Justin Chin on-site to assist with bottle selection.

Best practices: The blazing hotness of the Happy Crane currently makes securing a reservation challenging, but eventually this will become an excellent pre-opera/symphony option for the Civic Center crowd. Half the bar is reserved for walk-ins, if you’re striking out on Open Table.