WPCNR’S AT THE HOP Review of GREASE by Johnny Angel. March 15, 2007: GREASE is America’s My Fair Lady! Just as My Fair Lady is so-so British GREASE is as American as a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and French Fried Potato. Whether you’re 25 or 65 grab your old leather jackets, you ex- Flaming Dukes, Pink Ladies and Burger Palace Boys, the greaser gang is back hanging out at the WBT Drive-IN and the Burger Palace.
Sandy (Melissa Larsen) and Danny (Kasey Marino) are All Choked Up in the fabulous finale of GREASE — rocking again on the Mighty WBT in uptown Elmsford, “The Big E.” All Photos, Courtesy, Westchester Broadway Theatre by John Vecchiolla
Westchester Broadway Theatre’s new production of Grease is the most entertaining, energetic and fun production the mighty WBT (Number 1 in theatre with a bullet coming to you from the heart of the BIG E – uptown Elmsford) has staged in the last year.
WBT’s cover of the original 1971 stage monster hit guarantees Allan Freed, the malt shop, the record hop, leather jackets, pompadours ducktails and pony tails and deejays in plaid jackets will be forever cool– and the new WBT production of 2-1/2 hours of hits just keep on coming. The book is so spare and fast-moving with the New Yawk accents and wise guys and gals you’ll recognize. The songs get your feet moving, the hand-jive choreography, and signature slouch of 1958 teenage boys – are masterfully brought back by choreographer Kathy Meyer on the WBT Boards. The hard-working gang on stage has their doo-wops and rama-lama-ding-dongs so right, it’s the coolest.
From the inspired set of an old 50s year book pictures to turning the WBT into a high school gymnasium to the Greased Lightning hotrod on stage, GREASE takes you back in time.
Even Cole Porter’s musicals have a few clinker songs in them , but in GREASE there are no flipsides, every number is a hit from the opening scene at the Reunion of Rydell High’s Class of 1959, when Miss Lynch (Karen Murphy), Patty (Allison Couture) and Eugene (Aaron Young) sing the Alma Mater – you are going to dig this show, man.
Faster than a Little Deuce Coup, Danny Zuko played with hunch-shouldered wise guy cool by Kasey Marino and the Ms. Goody Two Shoes, Melissa Larsen as Sandy launch into their great duet of the show, the signature song of GREASE – Summer Nights – the pair nail this duet and you don’t want this instant replay to ever end. Here, Danny, (Kasey Marino), is trying to give Sandy (Melissa Larsen) his ring at the drive-in. Marino’s hilarious attempts to put his “night moves” on Sandy stir many memories with knowing laughter.
Ms. Larsen is crinoline crisp as the innocent Sandy Dumbrowski — managing to look and act 16and Mr. Marino works the New Yawk wise guy hood persona – like, ya know, really cool. (The Fonz – of Happy Days – was modeled on the Zuco character). Though actors an actresses who play the Sandy and Danny parts have to go up against the charisma and electricity of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta from the GREASE movie – Marino and Larsen just have the timing, the hesitation, and the awkwardness of teen attraction just right.
On and on through the very short evening every number surprises and delights and brings out laughs naturally – never a clunker line.
If you have not seen GREASE – I’ll lay it on you. New innocent girl Sandy meets wise guy hood Zuco during the summer and they have a romance. They meet that fall in school and hood doesn’t want to admit to his pals he’s stuck on her. The girls in school, The Pink Ladies, lead by wise-cracking Rizzo, played by Jacqueline Colmer, alternately make fun of Sandy, and Rizzo is jealous of Danny’s digging her. It’s high school!
The anxieties of this teen romance serve as a vehicle to recreate the high school experience of the baby boomer 1950s, when your biggest worry as a teenage girl was being popular and deciding between college, beauty school or Katherine Gibbs (a secretarial school), and going all the way, as a boy whether you were a athlete, a hood, or a nerd, and whether you could get a girl to go all the way, and, oh, yeah the disk jockeys on the radio were your friend and took dedications and actually talked to you. So simple then. GREASE brings it all back.
Picks to Click
Director Richard Roland has assembled a set of wonderful meshed players who bring Rydell High back to life with their over-the-top energy and Bronx accents.
The trio of would-be rock and roll singers, of Doody (Geoffrey Goldberg), and the Burger Place Boys falsetto with the best of the Cleftones on Those Magic Changes. They return in Act Two for the ode to the Rock N Roll Party Queen. Liz O’Donnell as Marty, the boy-crazy vamp, who flips out a wallet of pictures of her boyfriends at a recreation of a 50s slumber part in Act One, brings out the laughs with her Freddie My Love ballad.
A real hot rod comes on stage for the uptempo, Greased Lightning recalling those days of auto shop. Will Ray as Kenicke – Zuco’s rival — brings off this driving number.
The first act comes to a close with a hilarious duet between Roger (Nathan Scherich) and Jan (Tory Ross) about the joys of mooning (over each other). Colmer as Rizzo then has her big mocking number, I’m Sandra Dee, making fun of Sandy And if you do not know who Sandra Dee is – you don’t need to know– to enjoy this show. The music and good nature of GREASE just wins you over like a scratchy old record.
Rocking at the High School Hop.
Act Two recaptures the high school dance as it used to be when the versatile set of George Puello and Steven Loftus, transforms into Moonlight In the Tropics with paper palm trees and WAXX dee jay Vince Fontaine as master of ceremonies with formals and teen boys in suits and sneakers (so typical of the time). Shakin at the High School Hop by all the dancers makes you – as a person who lived in this era – really nostalgic. Those dances were such fun!
The hop is highlighted by the lecherous Murray the K/Allan Freed disk jockey character, from WAXX, (The Big 15), Vince Fontaine played by Rob Sheridan whose kicking the standup microphone bit is reminiscent of Allan and Murray at the Brooklyn Fox rock and roll shows. He introduces one of the main men of this show
Todd DuBail in gold lame suit as Teen Angel, plays the Dwayne Eddy/Elvis/Conway Twitty type rock star, Johnny Casino who comes back later as Teen Angel to sing Beauty School Dropout. Mr. Dubail’s grunts, gyrations and guitar slinging are the end. He even sounds like Elvis, and all you 50s chicks out there will love the curl on his forehead, too.
The stage production of GREASE is not like the movie. Though the characters are the same, the supporting characters have larger roles and the Rizzo-Danny romance is not as prominent. There is some reference to teen pregnancy and gang rumbles. But little violence.
One of the strengths of the stage production, and this one in particular is that though the characters are stereotypes – (you will recognize them all) – they all have stories to tell.
Home Room at Rydell High begins nightly at 6:30 with dinner in the mighty WBT in Big E-Uptown Elmsford through May 26. For tickets information go to www.broadwaytheatre.com. Or call 592-2222. Did I mention that you can have a genuine cheeseburger and fries for dinner or the usual excellent prime ribs, fish, eggplant parmigiana before the show?
The show rolls on with never a lull and is never dull. Is Rizzo really knocked up? Will Sandy and Danny get together again? Will Danny choose Patty the Cheerleader over Sandy? Will Eugene win Patty? Will the Flaming Dukes show up for a rumble. Like your high school, GREASE has terrific storylines that all get tied up and Rydell High – your high school lives once more .
