"Grease", now playing at GCP, is--according to the cover of the program--"A New 50's Rock 'N Roll Musical", which tells you right away that even the people who wrote it didn't think it would last this long. As all of you no doubt already know, Grease tells the heartwarming story of a nice, attractive, girl-next-door who, through the wonders of peer pressure, is magically transformed into a skanky whore, just so she can keep a man. Hear that, moms and dads? This is exactly the sort of inspirational message we need to be sending to our daughters today! As for this particular production of Grease, it seems to be technically very good. There are quality individual performances from the main and supporting players, as well as a spirited chorus, plus what is, for me, the hallmark of any good theatre production: girls in their underwear. But despite all those things, I still got the feeling that something just wasn't quite right. I haven't figured out what yet, but once I do, I'll let you know...... The story itself opens with John Travolta (played by Danny, who is played by Matthew Brando) and Olivia Newton-John (played by Sandy, who is played by Myla Williams) meeting unexpectedly in school after having a summer fling featuring either holding hands a lot, or frequent, frequent sex, depending on whose version of the story you believe. We hear about this in one of the show's signature songs "Summer Nights", which goes like this: Summer lovin', had me a blast, Summer lovin' happened so fast..... Met a [something something] for me, [Something] boy, cute as [a tree?] Chorus: WELL, UH, WELL, UH, HUH! TELL ME MORE, TELL ME MORE!!!! I SAID TELL ME MORE DAMMIT!!!!! etc.... Yes, like I said, the chorus is a spirited bunch. In fact, they're so spirited, they're not about to let a bunch of stuck-up, think-they're-better-than-us lead characters outsing them. No sir! So whenever one or two characters are singing with the chorus backing them up, you WILL be hearing what the chorus has to say..... (Sung simultaneously) Main character: [something, something, something else] Chorus: SHOO-BOP! SHOO-BOP! SHOO-BOP!!!! WE SAID SHOO-BOP DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Moving on, when Sandy and Danny meet again, Danny spurns her, as he doesn't want his tender side to show to his gang friends. They are quite the bunch of tough characters (think Lenny and Squiggy from "Laverne and Shirley), and like all tough young punks across America, there's nothing they like better than to get into some impromptu singing and choreography so flaming, it would make the Village People jealous. From there the story goes through your typical boy-girl themes: Boy misses girl, boy thinks about having sex with girl, boy goes to dance with other girl and wins hand jive contest through ingenious strategy of not actually doing the hand jive, boy gets girl back, boy tries to have sex with girl, girl leaves boy, boy says good riddance to girl then thinks about having sex with her anyway, etc. There's also a sub-plot about Rizzo, who--despite her name--is not actually a Muppet, but is in fact a tough girl from the wrong side of the tracks who discovers that even unpopular girls can find acceptance by sleeping around. (Are you listening, parents? Are *your* kids unpopular? Get them tickets to this show!) But eventually, it all boils down to a happy ending, and you just know that Danny and Sandy will live happily ever after.....because there's no firmer foundation for a solid, lasting relationship than forcing the other person to radically alter their personality..... As far as the acting goes, it was pretty solid all the way around. Notables were: -Myla Williams as Sandy does a fine job acting and has a very lovely singing voice. Unfortunately, she fails to make a single appearance on stage in her underwear, which truly would've helped this show. -Matthew Brando as Danny does a good job with the tough-guy aspect of Danny's personality, but not as well showing the tender side. He sang well generally, but tended to lose too much volume on the higher notes. There also doesn't seem to be a lot of chemistry between Danny and Sandy, though I can't say who's at fault for that. -Laura Hassas-Adams as Rizzo also does an excellent dramatic job in a what is essentially a second lead female role. -Bill Sabis is a natural as the radio personality who goes around trying to make it with all the young girls in the show. He also plays Vince Fontaine. -Alisha Giampola does a good job as Frenchy, but I felt like there was something in her performance that was a bit too much. It wasn't bad. just a bit too much. -John Denton as Eugene, Eugene the Dancing Mahine: Now this was WAY too much. The entire cast of Revenge of the Nerds combined wasn't as bad as this Eugene. It's one thing to play a nerdy character, but this became almost a parody of itself. Note that I don't blame the actor for this, because it's someone else's job to tell the actor when they need to tone it down a few notches.... -Caeli Christianson as Patty was done almost perfectly. She played up the uptight nature of her character without making it overblown. She also would've greatly added to the show with an underwear scene or two. -Jennifer Anderson as Jan. Did a good acting job, but the day I saw the show, it sounded like she had a severe head cold, or sinus congestion, or something. Although it mysteriously went away whenever she sang...... -Johnny Casino and the Gamblers, appearing as Frankie-Poo and the Whiteys: For a doo-wop group, they were a little lifeless. I don't know if they needed a microphone or just amphetamines, but I didn't feel a lot of energy there. -Jeremiah "Jo-Jo" Braiman as Sonny. He was quite good, but mostly I mention him because I want to see if I can get the entire cast to read this and start calling him "Jo-Jo". Call it a psychology experiment. It seemed more humane than locking him in a box and not knowing for sure whether or not he was dead at any given moment. -Matthew Bell as Doody. I guess the character name is appropriate, because with his hair like that, he does kinda look like Howdy Doody. Also does a nice job with the songs 'Those Magic Changes" and "Rock and Roll Party Queen" -Sissy Bell, as the spotlight operator who wears a leather jacket, inside GCP, in Florida, in the summertime. I guess she has an excuse though, since we all know how much cold air that spotlight throws off..... -Erin Murphy as Cha Cha Degregorio. [Insert your own "How do you like tham Cha Cha's?" joke here] -Bradley Small as Roger, plays a very convincing young black man. So convincing, in fact, that someone decided he--the only black person in the gang--should carry the stolen hubcaps. This is exactly the kind of commitment to racial diversity that has made GCP the bastion of pretending to be racially diverse among community theatres in this town. -Christa Rodriguez as Marti also does a good job as the girl who does the stuff that her character did in the show. -Oppressed Minority Cristine Antolak, as the graphics designer. She wasn't actually in the show.....I just wanted an excuse to call her "Oppressed Minority Cristine Antolak", because one of her distant relatives (it was either Adam or Eve) was born outside the U.S. thereby making her eligible for the "I Can't Believe It's Not Whitey" minorty scholarship..... MISCELLANEOUS -The songs is this show weren't nearly as dirty as the songs on the movie soundtrack, although they did leave in Sandy's line about "Got me so damp" in "Summer Lovin" -The choreography overall was pretty good, but it was just weird in some places, such as "Beauty School Dropout".....although admittedly, that whole scene was a little weird, with women in KKK robes backing up a black man dressed like Elvis.... -While watching the drive-in movie scene, with the guy and girl sitting there watching a movie about a werewolf, I got an overwhelming sense of deja vu......After I thought about it, I realized why: if Sandy was black, and Danny was a little more white, it would've been the opening for the video of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"..... -I didn't quite get what was going on with "It's Raining On Prom Night". Sandy is on one side of the stage listening to the radio, which is supposedly playing a recorded song, except that there's a live person on the other side of the stage singing the supposedly recorded song; plus they keep switching off between singing lead and backup. Plus, it wasn't really a "prom"...... -I said before that there was something about this show that didn't work for me, and I finally figured out what it is. It doesn't flow very well. There are a lot of character roles in this show, and I think most of the actors are concentrating so hard on being their characters that they forget to be real people, too. It's like one character will speak a line; then the next character will speak a line because it's their turn to speak a line, not because (s)he's responding to the first character. That's exactly what it is, and now I'm all pleased with myself for figuring that out. Which is not to say that this is a bad show. There are a bunch of fine individual perfromances; but that's all they are. There isn't any kind of synergy among the cast that elevates this into a real show that draws you in. As far as recommending it, I would. There have been better shows at GCP, but there have certainly been ones that are far worse. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this show a B-minus. I'd say more about it, but it looks like the chorus is about to-- WE SAID SHOO-BOP DAMMIT!!!! SHOO-BOP!!!!!!!!!!! -john