Grease is a strange word

Last weekend, Rachel came home to see her old high school theater group perform Grease. I've never actually seen the show, though Carol and Rachel have seen it a couple of times, but I am very familiar with the movie starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. My brother was a big fan and used to watch it all the time so I caught some Grease shrapnel.

The huge company of kids did a great job. While I don't think the singing or acting was quite as strong as some previous shows, the dancing was probably the best of the many shows I've seen at the school and the staging, tech, costumes, and scene changes were very well done. It was a fun show and the audience loved it.

What really struck me, though, is that the show itself isn't fantastic. It's more of an ensemble piece to highlight aspects of fifties pop culture. As such, the central romance is not the focus of the show and there are way too many songs that exist merely to showcase a particular type of fifties music, rather than advance the plot or characters.

The movie, in contrast, took that raw material and fixed it, focusing on Danny and Sandy and making their relationship more believable and interesting. They cut out the superfluous songs and added a couple that work much better. In particular, "Sandy", sung by Danny at the drive-in, is a much better song than "Alone at a Drive-in Movie". They also rearranged the plot a bit and the story works much better in the movie.

The other fun thing is that the show has a TERRIBLE message. Basically, Sandy has all kinds of problems with Danny and the other kids because she's a "good" girl who doesn't smoke, drink, or sleep around. Only by embracing her slutitude (TM Ipecac 2013) and giving up her good girl persona does she find acceptance. Danny has a similar, reverse, story arc when he joins the track team to become respectable and actually earns a letter, but he abandons that as soon as Sandy shows up in her skin tight outfit. (And in the play, he actually quits the track team, rather than finish the season). So, terrible message. Way to go, Grease.