Get Your Grease On

Review: Grease 

With its colorful, eccentric costumes and slick pomade hairdos, Grease brings its audience back to the charming and eclectic 1950s, complete with an authentic Rydell High experience.

At the start, the stern headmistress Miss Lynch (played by Val Lehman) greets the audience with a huge blackboard (towed in by her 2 favorite students, Eugene and Patty) that has the lyrics of the song “We Go Together” written on it. She then asks, or rather demands, the audience to sing along, which quickly ends up as a sing-off between the cast and audience. You know you’re in for a treat when the very 1st act leaves you feeling like a high school student once again.

Grease tells the love story of Danny Zuko (played by Rob Mills) and Sandy Olsson (played by Gretel Scarlett) and is named after a 1950s youth subculture known as the ‘greasers’. It mainly revolves around the greaser gang ‘T-Birds’ and their female counterpart, the ‘Pink Ladies’. The show highlights themes of teenage rebellion, love, and sexual exploration, often in the form of raunchy jokes, suggestive body language, and vulgar hand signs. Honestly, it’s not exactly the kind of musical to bring children to.

For those familiar with the movie, the plot for the musical is largely the same. In fact, this isn’t exactly the musical for complicated storylines and mind-blowing plot twists since what keeps the crowd excited are the song and dance numbers, which are very well done in this particular production. The use of pyrotechnics, strobe lights, and huge exaggerating props (read: a car on a stage) provide songs like “Greased Lightnin’” and “Born to Hand Jive” lots of pizzazz.

The musical keeps its audience clapping and singing along to some of the more popular songs like “We Go Together”, “Summer Nights”, and “You’re the One That I Want”. However, the show starts to fall flat in the second act, when there are more solo ballads than huge, pumped up dance numbers­ – especially in the abrupt ending.

This is redeemed though with the reprise of ‘We Go Together’ at the end as well as a medley during the final curtain call. Such is the mesmerizing power and feel-good vibe of these showy tunes that will keep you humming them for days and feeling strangely satisfied after watching the musical. You’ve been warned.

Venue: Grand Theatre, Mastercard Theatres, Marina Bay Sands

Date: April 25 – May 18

Tickets: $60 – $175 from Sistic

Photos Courtesy Of Base Entertainment