Grease
Nostalgia and Hijinks by the Bucketful at Altarena Playhouse
By: Victor Cordell - Mar 31, 2025
For many of those who have seen the movie Grease, the very names Zuko, Rizzo, Kenickie, Frenchy, and Rydell High evoke nostalgia for the early rock-and-roll and original American Bandstand era of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, with dances like the twist, stroll, and variations of the jitterbug. Guys sported duck-tail hairdos, blue jeans with pant legs rolled into cuffs, and white tee shirts; and chicks had pony tails, poodle dresses, and saddle shoes.
Like many successful movie musicals, Grease drew on a stage predecessor that fewer people will have seen but that triggers as much reminiscence. Its wildly successful Broadway version ran for eight years. Neither Jim Jacobs nor Warren Casey who collaborated on the book, music, and lyrics, would create another successful musical, which surprises, as Grease is chockablock with fitting and memorable songs and sharp caricatures. Altarena Playhouse, with Jacquie Duckworth directing, recreates the energy of the original, keeping the audience in smiles and laughs and applauding enthusiastically throughout.
The narrative is episodic, displaying a slice of life rather than telling a story. High schools are full of cliques, and at Rydell, the select ne’er-do-wells are the Greasers in their motorcycle jackets with their female counterparts, the Pink Ladies, in pink satin jackets. Their lives are revealed as much by the music as the dialogue, and a large ensemble shares lead singing duties and plot points.
One through line, however, is that Danny Zuko (played by Luc Leffe) and Sandy Dumbrowski (Kit Town) had a summer romance and parted with the expectation that each was going to a different Catholic school, this being a largely Italian and Polish area in Chicago. But when they show up at the same public school, Danny is conflicted about trying to be the same cool, macho guy with his Greaser friends as well as the sensitive boyfriend to Sandy. She is new to the school and has to deal with horning in on the territory and male quarry of the Pink Ladies.
But it is the memorable songs plus choreography by Shelly McDowell that make the show pop. Group singing was always strong on opening night, while some soloists were uneven, perhaps from opening night jitters. What distinguishes the dance is the heavy use of hand movement that juices up many dances. And the dancers often appear as a flurry of cheery, excited movement as almost the whole company is involved in many dances.
Boys and girls dance as a troupe in many numbers such as the lively and expectedly handsy “Born to Hand Jive” and the upbeat closing “We Go Together” with its array of nonsense syllables common especially to doowop. But also effective is when the cast is clustered in separate gender tribes as if in different locations and sing alternating verses. This technique is used in the reflective love ballad “Summer Nights” with Danny and Sandy leading their respective groups. It also works on “Those Magic Changes,” another love lament that cleverly starts as an instructional on guitar chord progressions for beginners! But the real litmus test is the peppy “You’re the One that I Want” which the cast passes with flying colors. We shouldn’t forget that there are also some solos that hit the spot, including the beautiful “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” which Kit Town caresses until she blasts off, and “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” sung with appropriate derision by Seana Nicol as Rizzo.
As fun and uplifting as Grease is, it touches, albeit briefly, on a number of important issues – teen sex and pregnancy; peer pressure and conformity; academic failure; rebellion; and gang violence. In its pre-Broadway versions, the play, which draws on Jacobs’ own experience in high school was darker and grittier, with more emphasis on story and less on music. Perhaps the greatest deficiency of the musical is that in sanitizing the book, many incidents and situations hit and run with no depth or development at all. But the good news is that the fond remembrances of youth, low-ball humor, and finger-popping music make for a barrel of fun.
Grease, with book, music, and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, is produced by Altarena Playhouse and plays on its stage at 1409 High Street, Alameda, CA through April 27, 2025.