Play Review

The performance I choose to see this semester was the musical Grease. The biggest part of the musical was the acting. I've seen the movie many times and couldn't help but compare it to that. I thought the cast did a great job. I thought Danny's character could have been a little more jerky at parts. Sometimes he just seemed too nice for the situation. The girl who played Sandy didn't seem to stand out to me. I think that she should have had a smaller part. She was good but she didn't catch your eye every time she walked on the stage. A character's acting I was really confused about was Cha Cha DiGrigorio. In the show she was portrayed as nerdy. She was not portrayed as the best dance and sexy as she is in the movie. Jan and Frenchie talked and acted the same in the show. In the movie, they are two different people. A person I thought "hogged" all the attention was the girl who played Rizzo. Every time she opened her mouth her voice was very boisterous and carried. Overall I thought the cast was good, but I wouldn't say great.

The writing was definitely well done. It was basically the same as the movie, expect there were some extra things added in. There were added scenes with added songs. The song "Blue Moon" is sang in the show while they are at school. In the movie, it is playing in the background at the dance. Another song is "It's Raining on Prom Night." It is sung by Jan in the show, but is only play on the juke box for a minute in the restaurant in the movie. The genre of the show was a musical. There was a clear conflict between Sandy and Danny. He had met her at the beach over the summer. She was supposed to go back to Australia, but ends up at his high school. Sandy is a goodie goodie and Danny is part of the famous T-Birds. He does like her, but once he finds out that she is a student at the school he acts too cool for her. The story is of their budding romance during Senior year and dealing with the pressure from peers along the way. The dramatic event in the story was when they attend the dance together and it seems that everything is going great for them. They are dancing in the dance off and Sandy gets pushed to the side by some of the guys so Danny can dance with Cha Cha because they have had past relations. On the side you see Sandy exit the stage as to be leaving the dance in disgust.

I thought that the directing was well done. The show moved fast and it didn't seem to drag on. I enjoyed the choreography throughout the show. The only problem I had was that I felt there needed to be more of an ensemble. You had the 2 main characters, the 4 Pink Ladies and the 4 T-Birds, and maybe 5 or 6 other people. For the dance sequences that was only about 16 people on the stage. My high school did Grease when I was in sixth grade and I remember lots of people dancing on the stage. I would have liked to have seen more people dancing to create a greater effect. It just didn't seem to have a lot going on.

Looking at the lighting during the show didn't really show any change. Basically every scene had bright lighting to light up the entire stage. There is a scene in Frenchie's bedroom and I thought that would have had a softer lighting as well as in a basement scene. In the movie, the drive in scene takes place with Sandy and Danny at night. In the show, the stage was still lit as if were the daytime. One of the issues I had with costuming and makeup was that Cha Cha was made to look like a little kid. In the movie, she has a sexy blue and black dress on with a slit up the side. Her hair is also curled. In the show she had on a bright orange dress that was knee length and her hair was in pigtails. Also, Marty has brown hair in the movie and the girl in the show had blonde. I enjoyed the music, but I felt that at times the girl who played Rizzo would over power everyone else when singing. She would also hurt your ears sometimes when she talked because it was so loud. As for minor things, I thought the costuming was good. It matched the time period they were in and didn't stray too far from the movie. I couldnt' really see if there were lines or shadows on their faces because we were sitting on the balcony, so I wasn't too close.

I enjoyed my overall experience of the show. Taylor Hicks, a winner of American Idol, played the teen angel role. It was exciting to see him come out and perform because he is technically "a celebrity." He also received much praise on the show because of the entertainment factor he delivered. He lived up to there comments in his performance. At the end of the show he came back on stage to perform his new single and would be out in the lobby signing autographs for people. I think his presence in the show added to the experience for the audience. Everyone was anticpating his performance from the beginning of the show. I would definitely go see Grease again if it comes back to Pittsburgh. I thought that the tickets prices were a little over priced. I think we payed about $40, but it was in the Benedum and featured Taylor Hicks. So I understand that they have to pay those expenses.