[NEohioPAL]Berko: GREASE (Carousel Dinner Theatre)

[Roy Berko]

‘GREASE’ is an audience pleaser at Carousel

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--

Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times	


‘GREASE,’ which is now on stage at Carousel Dinner
Theatre,  is one of the most oft- produced musicals. 
It has achieved almost cult status, but few realize
that it was not an instant hit on Broadway and had a
checkered history.   

The show opened off-Broadway on February 14, 1972 with
Barry Bostwick as Danny Zuko, and Carole Demas as
Sandy Dumbrowski.  The critics were generally
unimpressed, but the public found it satisfying and
through word-of-mouth its popularity spread.  The
result was a run of 3,388 performances.  It closed in
1980 and it held, at that time, the record for the
longest run for a musical.  

Interestingly, the Tony Awards committee ruled the
show was ineligible for nominations as the theatre in
which it was playing was several blocks away from
Broadway.  After the producers threatened to sue, the
Tony committee backed off and the show was nominated
for 9 awards, including best musical. 

The show became even more popular when, in 1978, the
movie version starring John Travolta and Olivia
Newton-John opened.  The movie version sugar-coated
the class aspects of the original, and subsequent
stage productions have played down that aspect of the
story even further and emphasized the nostalgia
aspects.  

Another little know fact is that when the show opened
in London, the role of Danny was taken by an unknown
actor named Richard Gere.

A Broadway revival in 1994 ran for four years and
starred Ricky Goldin as Danny, Susan Wood as Sandy,
Rosie O'Donnell as Rizzo, and a pre-‘WILL AND GRACE’
Megan Mullally as Marty.

The show is set in the 1950s, in-and-around Rydell
High School, as the students return from summer
vacation.  The guys are members of the "Burger Palace
Boys" and the girls form the "Pink Ladies." 

Danny, the quasi-leader of the Burger Boys, returns to
school with a tale of the girl he met during the
summer, only to find that the girl in question, Sandy,
has transferred to Rydell High from the more innocent
surroundings of a strict Catholic school. The
complications of teen angst play out including a
possible pregnancy, going steady, a high school drop
out, ear piercing, a personality change-over and the
purchase of a clunker of a car entitled “greased
lightning.”

The show has a memorable score which includes, "Summer
Nights, "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee," "It's Raining on
Prom Night" and "We Go Together."

Several songs--"You're The One That I Want" and
"Hopelessly Devoted To You"--were written for the film
version, but have been incorporated into many
stagings, including the one at Carousel.

Carousel’s production is fine on many levels.  The
singing, the choreography, the staging, and the
technical aspects (except for the overly-amped voices)
work well.  On the other hand, the cast is generally
too old to be playing teenagers.  Because they are
clean- scrubbed college graduate twenty-somethings,
they seem to have difficulty identifying with the
greaser guys and unsophisticated young ladies.  Thus,
caricatures rather than characters resulted.

Highlights of the show included “Shakin at the High
School Hop” and “Born to Hand Jive,” production number
show-stoppers.  The gospel version of “Beauty School
Dropout” was delightful.  “Mooning” was an audience
favorite.

Brunswick High School and recent Baldwin Wallace
graduate, Hannah Laird (Jan), Megan Nicole Arnoldy
(Sandy), Kevin Smith Kirkwood (Johnny Casino),
Jacqueline Colomer (Rizzo), Jason Shuffler (Kenickie)
and Kristofer Stock (Rump) gave highlight
performances. 

The music was well played, but at times was so
over-amplified that it drowned out the singers.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:   Carousel’s ‘GREASE’ is well
staged.  Audiences will be entertained.  Too bad the
same quality of singing and dancing couldn’t have been
accomplished with a more age-appropriate cast and one
that had a better level of identification with the era
and its teens.  

For tickets  call 800-362-4100.  Show times are
Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 8:00 p.m., Friday
and Saturday evenings at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday evenings
at 5 and Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2 P.M. 
Matinees are on Wednesday and Saturday at 2.  Dinner
is served two hours prior to curtain.  Ticket prices
range from $41 to $49  for the show with dinner and
28.50-$36.50 for the show alone.


Roy Berko's web page can be found at www.royberko.info.  His theatre and dance reviews appear on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.

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