All through Derby Dinner Playhouse's powerhouse production of Grease, that quintessential musical depiction of high-school days in 1950s America, I kept thinking that this show is just about as perfect in its way as Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend, the classic pastiche of 1920s British musicals. Both capture so beautifully through song, dance, and story the innocence of those times, though with Grease the innocence goes hand in hand with a crassness and laughable lack of sophistication wholly natural to characters of that time and place. This exuberant show, splendidly directed by Bekki Jo Schneider, bounces off the walls with the non-stop energy expended by its singers and dancers, whose aim to please produces several show-stopping moments, starting with the "Summer Nights" ensemble opening number led by high-school newcomer Sandy (Sybil Haggard) and Danny Zuko (Rick Cornette), the handsome "greaser" she wants.
Barbara F. Cullen's witty and joyous choreography is as much the star as the cast. Betty Rizzo (Sandra Simpson) is a mouthy, slutty standout in the tacky Pink Ladies club that finally accepts Sandy when she starts aping their ways and qualifies as cool, winning Danny in the bargain. Simpson's "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" is Rizzo's fierce putdown of poor square Sandy. "Freddy, My Love," a knockout song by Marty (Heather Folsom-McGuire) backed by the Pink Ladies, and "Alone At The Drive-In Movie," sung by Danny and the Burger Palace Boys, are major crowd-pleasers. Hearing some of the sentiments and brand names of those times is enough to make people swear off nostalgia. "Oh, go ahead, try it, it ain't gonna kill ya," tough broad Rizzo tells Sandy when she tries to teach her to smoke. When the Pink Ladies take slugs from a bottle of Swiss Colony wine, one girl declares that she prefers Thunderbird. At the high-school hop, one prize is a coupon good for $10 off at Robert Hall.
My favorite character is Frenchy (Amy Board), the lovable clueless loser who quits high school to train as a beautician. But she can't even cut the mustard for that kind of training and becomes a "Beauty School Dropout," a cue to bring on the best part of the show -- a glittery Vegas-type number fantastically sung by the Teen Angel (Corwyn Hodge) she wished would appear to guide her. The only strained note in the show is the subdued acting of Megan Burnett as Miss Lynch, the teacher. Surely she should be more outrageous as she rides herd on that unruly bunch of kids.
