"Grease" Isn't Slick Enough

There's a reoccurring dream that I have: I'm back in my old high school and no matter what I do or where I go, I can't get out. That's kind of how I've felt the last couple of weeks after seeing the totally sophomoric off-off Broadway show Idol: The Musical, both versions of the Disney Channel’s High School Musical and now the new revival of Grease that opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Sunday. Broadway seems obsessed with high school too. There are the socially conscious high schoolers in Hairspray, the sexually repressed ones in Spring Awakening, the overachieving bunch in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the slightly older sorority sisters of Legally Blonde and those witchy schoolmates in Wicked. Who says Broadway isn't trying to reach out to the youth market?

As anyone who has been to high school knows, popularity is the prime currency for success. And this production of Grease arrives with a built-in clique. Its stars were chosen by viewers who tuned into the NBC reality show, "You're the One That I Want" and phoned in votes for their favorites. "You're the One.." wasn't a big hit, as TV shows go, but it was big enough that the stage show now has a reported $15 million advance. Audience members at the performance my sister, niece and I attended reveled in being part of the in-crowed, mouthing the words to the songs and mobbing the souvenir shop, where T shirts went for $25 a pop—cash only, no credit cards.

The 21 year-olds who won the talent contest—Max Crumm and Laura Osnes—aren't bad. He has a goofy charm that doesn't really fit the character of the sexy greaser Danny Zuko but is nonetheless winning. She is appropriately sweet as goody girl Sandy Dumbrowski and nails her songs. But neither is ready to anchor a show and even though their castmates are more experienced (Kirsten Wyatt as Frenchy, the ditzy beauty-school dropout, and Jeb Brown as the lecherous radio DJ Vince Fontaine are particularly good) and nearly everyone on the creative team headed by director Kathleen Marshall has won, or at least been nominated for, a Tony Award, this Grease has an amateur feel about it. The best part for me was watching conductor Kimberly [not Karen as originally posted] Grigsby lead the onstage orchestra. Grigsby has a lithe swagger that even Rizzo, the show's bad girl, would envy and she danced and rocked her way through the entire evening. My husband K, the pit musician, has never played with Grigsby but some of our friends have and a few have been put off by what they call her show-off antics but she brought a sizzle to Grease that everyone else on stage lacked.

Truth is, I've always been so-so about Grease. But it was the object of my sister Joanne's first crush on Broadway. She saw the original production the fall she turned 16 and couldn't stop talking about it and or singing the songs in the weeks that followed. Good big sister that I was, I gave her the original cast album for Christmas, which she played and played and played. Her passion didn't fade with time; in fact, it revved up with the 1978 movie version starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. And though Joanne has seen scores of Broadway shows over the years, Grease, like all first loves, continues to hold a special place in her heart. She wasn't thrilled by what she saw at the Brooks Atkinson. But my niece—her daughter—Jennifer was. It won't surprise you to learn that Jennifer was a faithful viewer of "You’re the One That I Want". Of course, at 27, she's also one of the ones that Broadway wants. And so, although critics and traditionalists have decried it, this probably won't be the last time American TV viewers get to play casting director for a Broadway show.

Extra Credit for "High School Musical"

The most successful musical of the year hasn't appeared on Broadway. It's on TV's Disney Channel. It's a made-for-TV movie called High School Musical and if you're above legal drinking age, you're excused for not having heard about it until maybe a couple of weeks ago when the publicity drums for High School Musical 2 started thumping. The original was the story of Troy, an Anglo teen jock (the winning Zac Efron, who has gone on to co-star in the movie "Hairspray" and is reported to be in negotiations to star in a new version of "Footloose"); and Gabriella, an Hispanic braniac (winsome Vanessa Hudgens) who meet cute at a karaoke sing-along and then break the caste taboos at their New Mexico high school by falling in love with one another and with the idea of singing together in the school's annual musical. Since it first aired 18 months ago, the show has become a bonafide phenomenon: an estimated 200 million TV viewers around the world have seen it, the cast album was last year's top seller, a stage version opened in Chicago earlier this month; a ice show is planned for later this year and HSM has been repackaged as a videogame, a fragrance and a clothing line.

Wanting to see what all the fuss was about, I watched the movie a couple of weeks ago and smiled the whole way through. It's surprisingly charming. At a time when most teen comedies center around raunchy sex jokes, Troy and Gabriella consummate their relationship with a chaste kiss. The supporting characters are diverse: black, white, and Hispanic, overweight, nerdy and apparently gay, rich and working class. The parents aren't dismissively dumb, desperately trying to be cool or too involved with other things to care about their kids. The moral of the tale is that there's more to everyone than meets the eye—one basketball player bakes in his spare time; one geeky girl has a secret passion for hip hop. And there hasn't been a group of kids who've had as good a time singing and dancing since Mickey, Judy and their gang were putting on shows. (There are clips galore on YouTube if you want to take a quick peek; click here to see one of my favorite numbers).

The inevitable sequel that debuted on Friday night isn't as good. The book, about the kids' summer vacation before senior year, is flat-footedly self-conscious. Leave alone the fact that I can't figure out why Disney would wait until late August to air a summer break show. The musical numbers, whose songs again come from assorted writers, simply line up in imitation of their predecessors in the original. Some critics have suggested that High School Musical 2 and future versions need more irony (as though kids are suffering from a lack of exposure to that) but what they have forgotten is that despite the recent adult attention, the show is for kids. And both versions of High School Musical provide a safe haven for their tween fans—youngsters between the ages of 7 and 14 looking for some cool but non-threatening version of what it will be like to be older. But what really delights a theater populist like me is that the shows are also getting a new generation used to the idea that people can express emotions by breaking into song in the middle of a field or a dance in the middle of a basketball court. In other words, they're creating a new audience for Broadway. It's no surprise that the Disney folks are behind this. As a major producer of Broadway musicals, they've a vested interest in stocking the pipeline with future paying customers. Whatever the reason they’re doing it, they, and High School Musical, deserve an A for the effort.

The Fall of "Idol: the Musical"

Here's the dilemma: The last thing I want to do is discourage anyone's enthusiasm for the theater— either as a creator or a consumer. And I certainly don't want to dampen the spirits of any young people who are just starting out in the business. But Idol: The Musical, which opened and closed on Sunday night, put both of my resolves to the test.

The show, which called itself “a satirical musical comedy that focuses on the outrageous and delusional fan base of the hit television show” –read "American Idol" –seems to have started out as a student project at Syracuse University; its composer and lyricist Jon Balcourt will be a senior there in the fall and, according to the production notes, this is only the second show he's ever written. Balcourt isn't totally without talent but he isn't anywhere near precocious enough for people to have hiked over to the 45th Street Theatre and forked over $60 a ticket to see his work.

I confess that it was schadenfreude that caused me to see it. I was intrigued by the idea of poking fun at a pop cultural juggernaut like "American Idol" and curious about the show's decision to replace its entire 10-member cast just nine days before opening. But as I sat watching the show, I wondered if the original cast had simply mutinied and abandoned ship. The book, about a group of misunderstood college losers who are brought together by their devotion to "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken, was patched together with cannibalized bits from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Spring Awakening and even the Disney Channel’s High School Musical. The direction leaned heavily on having people drop their pants for laughs. And, although I refuse to name to names because they are so young, some of the cast members sang as though they might be closely related to William Hung. I found myself wincing constantly. The man sitting next to me kept sighing heavily until he couldn’t take it any more and bolted for the door about halfway through the 90-minute show. That started a mini-stampede.

I stayed to the end. But there was the smell of a vanity project about the whole production, a strong whiff of parents with money overindulging their wunderkind. Kids deserve better than that. And so I hope that those involved in this production who still need to finish school will do so, that the few truly talented among their number will continue to hone their craft and that in years to come, they all will look back on this experience as just the case of goofy collegiate high jinks that it was and should have stayed.