Cast :
Danny Zuko... Derek Eyamie
Sandy... Shawna Morgan
And local jazz musicians including Don Johnson on drums, André Frechette on Sax, Craig Kennedy on Guitar, Mark Ferguson on Keyboard and Sol Gunner on Bass
GREASE, takes us to Rydell High School, under Tricia MacNeil Baldwin's huge juke box of a set that flashed and lit up at the right moment...as the songs spun out from the band, perched appropriately on the upper levels...a good idea that!
A lively show at Centrepointe and one that had the merit of giving ample opportunity to the younger members of Orpheus to do their thing on stage. As musicals go, though, GREASE is a product of the Elvis craze, and it's the music that carries the show. The production did show us that there is some excellent young singing talent around Ottawa, but that the dancing was less than spectacular. Strange because CHORUS LINE brought out excellent dancers and singers...so WHERE were they all? In fact, it soon became fairly clear only a few people in the cast could handle the kind of rock'n'roll we used to do in 1959, with all those swishy crinolines and pony tails flapping the air. I know, I was there!
One has to admit that choreographer Debbie Millett did do her best to make the group of mostly non dancers look as though they could dance. The best moments : "Shakin' at the high school hop" where 2 couples almost looked professional - they were : Derek Eyamie and Christa Cullain / Dustin Vye and Barb Lankamp.: four breaths of fresh air that didn't last nearly long enough, in fact, the Vye /Lankamp duo even got eliminated because the bothersome teacher, Miss Lynch (Nedra Nash) found their gestures unacceptable! Sonny (Vye) slid under the dance captain's (Barb's) skirt or something and got a worms eye view of things he wasn't supposed to see during the dance contest! But could they dance!!!
The other number that carried me away was "Beauty School Drop" out, with Teen Angel Dean Foster McNeil as the pop singer and the Chorus moving deftly into a gospel choir performance that was very exciting. Other fine moments : Daniel Gillis as Roger- who sings about "Mooning" and Réjean Dinelle-Mayer as Doody doing his "Magic Changes". Shawna Morgan as Sandy has a beautiful voice..and Nicole Williams as Rizzo, the Pink Lady who has been around , was an exceptionally strong presence on stage. She and Kenickie spend most of their time 'making out' in a corner and frankly, I don't blame her! Stepan Pruchnicky who played Kenickie (one of the Burger Palace boys) was the sexiest male presence on stage...and what a wonderful bass voice...speaking and singing. Let's see more of this young man around Orpheus.
Costumes, set, all fine and the music was the backbone of the production.... Lots of talent then....so why did I feel that the production slowed down to a halt every time the music stopped? It was the staging which somehow didn't always work. Too many pauses, too much bad blocking, too little sense of rhythm in the general movement of the cast. Scenes which suddenly seemed to come peter out leaving a great void in the show. Things have to keep rolling, they didn't. And this is all the more important here precisely because the story is so thin, because there is no great drama unfolding, no tension; we are just biding time between numbers. Somehow one felt the director wasn't particularly interested in what happened between musical numbers. And again I couldn't help but ask the question I never cease to ask here, where is the diversity? All those white faces....that just isn't normal!
Nevertheless, the audience was with them, the young one's howled, the parents were proud, I loved the musicians....and Pruchnicky. So until something better comes along...GREASE is the word. GREASE plays at Centrepointe until March 8, 2003. For tickets call the Box Office at 580-2700.
[ Source: CBC Ottawa Morning ]