Last January, Fox TV jumped into NBC’s live musical game and upped the ante with a multi sound stage, studio audience included live version of the 1978 movie sensation Grease. Starring Broadway veteran Aaron Tveit (Next to Normal, Catch Me If You Can), “Dancing With the Stars” professional and judge Julianne Hough (Footloose, Rock of Ages), High School Musical alumna Vanessa Hudgens (Broadway’s Gigi) and a host of other up and coming names from TV, pop music, and Broadway, all under the master direction of Hamilton‘s Thomas Kail, Fox permanently changed the new expectations of the genre. To celebrate the video release of the event this week, revisiting the evening seemed appropriate for formulating this review.
Upfront, any legitimate review on any version of Grease must include full disclosure of the personal relevance of the material in all its incarnations to this critic. It is not exaggeration to say that the 1978 theatrical movie event changed my life. A lifelong fan of Miss Olivia Newton-John, when I heard she was making her first movie, a musical nonetheless, I began researching everything I could find on the piece all summer of ’78. Nothing prepared me for what I saw on screen. Coming from a black and white town, never having seen a non-Disney movie musical (because, save for The Sound of Music, Oliver, and Fiddler on the Roof, none of which I had seen yet, they really hadn’t made any decent ones since I had been born, and the Saturday Night Fevers and all the following rip offs don’t count) and only a handful of local and high school stage musicals, when the film started at the Palace Theatre in Frostburg, and the Frankie Valli theme song started playing, I was blown away. I had never seen a movie where colors were that bright and bold, where the music was that amazing an addition to the film, Miss Newton-John was never more beautiful, and the cast was definitive. I left that theatre with a new love—my discover of true musical theatre. The mock 50s soundtrack took over the contemporary airwaves. I went on to see the movie 13 more times that summer, and when it came on HBO the following year, and I watched it every time it ran, any hour of the day, that number climbed well over 50. I wore out my first copy of the LP and my first book of vocal selections fell apart. Valli was completely right, Grease was the word (whatever that meant).
In college, Grease was the hot music to use in cabarets and variety shows (I even choreographed a medley myself, because I knew every step of the movie). It got to the point when instead of counting sheep when I couldn’t sleep, I would recite the entire screenplay of Grease at night, including every song and every note of incidental musical underscore. Yes I was a total Danny Zuko T-Nerd. When it became clear years later that I had a side calling in the performing arts, most theatres weren’t doing contemporary shows other than the occasional Godspell or Pippin. In the sea of Camelots, Brigadoons, Music Men, and Anything Goes(es?), perpetual classics with perfect but standard scores, the Mecca of all young actors was to recreate their favorite role in Grease. And as fate would have no other way, my first professional summer stock role was as Roger, one of the Burger Palace Boys in the most perfect regional production of the show I have yet to see. That production is still one of the most amazing memories I’ve had in a career full of landmarks and dream roles.
Cut to 2016. All the theatre geeks are getting angry and disillusioned that it appears Fox isn’t in fact doing the play version of the show, but something new based on the movie. Would it have been any other show, I would have been the purist too. But this was a new version of the movie that still features high on my all time Top 10. I’m willing to give it a chance, but if it fails, I will be merciless in my review.
So comparisons to the iconic cast of the movie who have defined these characters in pop culture are hard to avoid. Fortunately, they are all in the end moot. Fox was smart in casting their leads, beautiful TV/movie/dancer supreme, American’s budding sweetheart Julianne Hough as Sandy, and anchoring the show on the shoulders of live Broadway veteran and best young leading man of the day Aaron Tveit as Danny Zuko. There is no contesting John Travolta remains the definitive Danny Zuko, but what Tveit may lack in natural swagger he makes up for with his wealth of multiple talents and his experienced theatrical background. No stranger to commanding a stage, he sings and dances fluidly throughout the show, giving everyone a strong core on which to build and a pair of dreamy blue eyes into which to sing. Miss Hough, a rising screen star who possesses an alluring innocent sensuality reminiscent of a young Ann-Margret, is all one could ask for of Sandy in 2016—beautiful, engaging, captivating in dance and sheer motion, all of which more than compensate for the fact that she may have fallen shy of Miss Newton-John’s silver-voiced vocals. Of course there were comparisons between their versions of “Hopelessly Devoted”, but they were needless. While Miss Newton-John is in no threat of being toppled musically, Miss Hough was solid on her own vocal terms.
In the supporting roles, Hudgens convincingly makes the jump from high school sweetheart to high school bombshell. Hers is a slinkier, steamier Rizzo, less Stockard Channing, more Broadway predecessor Adrienne Barbeau, rewritten to soften her edges and allow more empathy for Sandy and her growth towards acceptance of her. Big Time Rush’s Carlos Penavega makes an adequate Kenickie, even if he is slightly less commanding presence than he should be.
The casting of the respective gang members is somewhat difficult to critique because the casting was imbalanced and uneven. In the original stage version, most gang members and Pink Ladies have their own solos. But the movie version cuts all the songs out and cast, with the slight exception of then B movie actress Didi Conn, total unknowns, which worked perfectly for the film, as the actors functioned simultaneously as individual characters and part of a blended unit group. In a commendable decision, this production chose to at least blend a few of the more memorable supporting solos back in. Teen Wolf‘s Jordan Fisher stands out as Doody with a smooth voice showing off with the clever use of “Magic Changes” to frame Danny’s sports tryout montage. Kiki Palmer’s Marty is gifted the solo theatrical moment of the evening in a beautifully staged dream version of “Freddie, My Love”, complete with a brilliantly designed quadruple layered costume change. Faring less well is cute and amiable but bland Carly Rae Jepson as Frenchie, a role that requires a unique comic character actress. Jepson was merely endearing. Not helping her cause was the fact that someone (the producers, the songwriters, or Miss Jepson’s people, whoever was hungriest for potential radio play and the residuals and Emmy nominations that won’t follow) saddled her with a shameless, inappropriately contemporary song immediately preceding the iconic “Beauty School Dropout” in the already longest scene in the show. While Olivia Newton-John’s longtime collaborator John Farrar certainly took advantage of her status to add music to the original movie for her, he at least took great effort to blend it into the score in styles of the period. Miss Newton-John still receives airplay for her interpretations. Miss Jepson will not be so fortunate.
Special casting note should go to the echoes of the adult stunt casting Robert Stigwood employed in the movie, supplementing the greenness of the newbies with the experience of show biz legends. Ana Gasteyer channels her best Eve Arden as Principal McGee. Original Frenchie Didi Conn lends dignity and sentimental charm as Joan Blondell’s waitress Vi, her former character’s earthbound form of her guardian angel. And while she’s no Alice Ghostly, Eve Plumb scored as shop teacher Miss Murdoch, making it fun to muse that poster middle child Jan Brady perhaps grew up to be this boozy old broad. But the cameo of the evening is without a doubt Haneefa Wood as Gasteyer’s administrative assistant Blanche in an updated performance that wisely avoids all comparisons with the legendary Dody Goodman and makes Blanche all her urban, 2016 own.
William Ivey Long’s costumes were, as always, flawlessly executed tributes to Anne Roth’s originals. Glee veteran Zach Woodlee’s choreography elevated Patricia Burch’s energetic take on the fads of the day and amped them up while simuntaneously paying tribute to them. Miss Burch created several dance set pieces that have become part of the defining visual language of Grease. Woodlee wisely picks and chooses, saluting her “Born to Hand Jive” and “You’re the One That I Want” combinations, yet excels with totally fresh and original concepts for the most iconic number of all, “Greased Lightning”, foregoing the conventional synchronized arm routine and cranking up the testosterone, again with an assist from Long’s instantaneously changing costumes. His only misfire was including dancing girls in the number. “Greased Lightning” is the ultimate dude fest. (The top three credos of the Guy Code are there’s no talking about Fight Club, there’s no crying in baseball, and there’s no chicks in “Greased Lightning”)
But despite the mega star power in front of the camera, the true star of the evening is director Hait. Not only coaxing winning performances out of his engaging cast and supervising the coordination of all the other superior elements, Hait employs series after series of innovative and fluid camera moments throughout multiple studio sets and sweeping aerial work during the entire dance at the gym that brings every scene to maximum life, keeping everything lively and entertaining without resorting to the standard jerky, hyperactive mufti-camera editing today’s MTV video generation utilizes to ruin musical numbers. Currently the hot ticket in New York after helming uber-hit Hamilton, Hait has a bright future in film as the only director besides Chicago‘s Rob Marshall to display any creative comprehension of the nature of movie musicals in the last half century.
A word must be said about Fox’s decision to employ a live studio audience on set, a frequent internet critique aimed at NBC’s annual productions by theatre aficionados. While the mindset is that live theatrical performances thrive off the audience energy exchange, leaving these performances flat on TV, Fox proved that in some instances the theory backfires. In 2016, your standard audience member no longer knows how to behave, and the audience was in more instances an intrusion with inappropriate noise and unnecessary applause. It turns out to be more that the true factor to getting good energy from your live performers is through the expertise of a great director.
Overall, Fox should be congratulated on a very risky premise, and even though the evening clocks in at a full 3 hours with commercial interruptions, all the elements combined to provide us with a thoroughly enjoyable balance of saluting the nostalgia and finding new contemporary life in a cherished classic movie. With fresh thinking visionaries at the helm and a talented hard working cast fleshing out their vision, Grease Live creates an entertaining alternative to the theatrical event for another generation.