Les Misérables Musical Review

For F*** Magazine

LES MISÉRABLES


Cast : Simon Gleeson, Earl Carpenter, Chris Durling, Patrice Tipoki, Kerrie Anne Greenland, Emily Langridge, Paul Wilkins
Run Time : 2 hrs 55 mins (With 20 mins interval)
Runs : 31 May to 24th July 2016 at Esplanade Theatre

When one thinks of juggernaut musical theatre extravaganzas, the show that immediately comes to mind (apart from the one about a disfigured genius who kills a bunch of people in an opera house) is Les Misérables. Based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, considered to be one of the greatest works of 19^th Century literature, the musical was composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg, with French-language lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel. After becoming a hit in Paris, an English-language version with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer premiered on the West End in 1985 at the Barbican Theatre. Weathering some nasty reviews from the British press, the show has gone on to be a worldwide sensation, with touring productions, translations into multiple languages, anniversary gala concerts and a 2012 Oscar-winning film adaptation. Touring productions have previously visited Singapore in 1994 and 1996.

            It is 1815, and Jean Valjean is a convict who was sentenced for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s dying son. Valjean breaks parole to start a new life, eluding the capture of Inspector Javert. Following an encounter with a gracious bishop, Valjean reinvents himself as “Monsieur Madeleine”, eventually becoming the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer and a factory owner. Factory worker Fantine gets fired and is forced into prostitution. As she lies dying, Valjean vows to care for Fantine’s daughter Cosette. He rescues Cosette from the cruel innkeeper Thénardier and his wife. Years later, Cosette meets and falls in love with Marius, a dashing young student drawn into a rebellion led by the passionate Enjolras. In the meantime, Thénardier’s daughter Éponine pines for Marius but goes unnoticed. Through all this, Javert continues his relentless pursuit of Valjean, who he sees as no more than “Prisoner 24601”.

            The show has such an in-built following that one has to remember that for audiences who have had no prior exposure to the story in any form, there’s some legwork to be done. While the lush score and exceedingly memorable songs do sweep one up, it’s clear that even at a running time of 3 hours (including intermission), the story has been greatly truncated. There are two major time skips: the story begins in 1815, then skips to 1823, and then further ahead to 1832. Characters reunite out of what seems like sheer convenience –Thénardier even references the serendipity that fuels the plot with the line “Ain’t the world a remarkable place?”. The bulk of the story is set against the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, but even given spirited speeches from student revolutionary Enjolras, we don’t get all that clear of an idea what exactly they’re rebelling against, apart from vague injustice.

            That said, this is still a show with tremendous emotional impact, enhanced by big-budget spectacle. This new production, patterned after the 25^th anniversary reworking of the show, features set designs by Matt Kinley, inspired by the original paintings of Victor Hugo. Hugo’s paintings are also worked into the projected backdrops. The multimedia effects include splashing water projected onto the scrim in front of the chain gang rowing away in the galley, as well as 3D animation of the cavernous sewers through which Valjean carries Marius. It’s a tiny bit tacky. The set is detailed and elaborate, with hinged flats swinging open to let in shafts of light; Paule Constable’s lighting design always dramatic. The askew back-alleys do look authentic enough, though the stage does often seem cluttered because so much is going on at once. Fans of the original staging might find themselves missing that turntable once the barricade goes up or pining for the way the sewer scene was originally lit, but there’s still no shortage of awe-inspiring visual splendour in this staging. Also, those gunshot effects are wont to give everyone in the first five rows mild tinnitus.

            Simon Gleeson’s Valjean is a man who begins as violent and bitter, and through his quest for redemption, never completely shakes that. It’s an interpretation that this reviewer found quite compelling, as Gleeson constantly reminds us that the feral beast with nigh-superhuman strength has never really gone away, and that Valjean is a man who has never been at peace with himself. While he delivers Valjean’s Soliloquy with great conviction, Gleeson has a tendency to go a little shouty during the opening act. His take on Bring Him Home, typically thought of as a tender song, is a little angrier than fans might be used to, but it does work with Gleeson’s characterisation of Valjean. Gleeson has, quite touchingly, said that the moment in each performance he most looks forward to is when Valjean meets little Cosette for the first time. One does get the sense that Valjean is valiantly trying to better himself for the sake of his adopted daughter, and the conclusion of Valjean’s odyssey is both satisfying and heart-rending.

            Earl Carpenter reprises the role he’s played on the West End and in other touring productions, the antagonist Javert. The character is driven by a singular obsession and is unwavering in his hunt for the fugitive who has eluded his capture, so it is easy to make him a moustache-twirling villain. Carpenter stays a safe distance away from that, but his Javert is still easy to root against. The superciliousness and condescension that are vital components of the character are very much present in Carpenter’s interpretation, and the actor’s imposing physical stature certainly helps. His take on Javert’s signature tuned Stars is a genuine show-stopper and is one of the best renditions this reviewer has heard.

            Patrice Tipoki’s Fantine is perfectly serviceable and her rendition of the iconic song I Dreamed a Dream is a decent one, but she ultimately doesn’t plumb the depths of the character’s tragedy, failing to make enough of an impact in her limited time on stage. Incidentally, her sister Laura is the conductor and musical director for this production.

Both Paul Wilkins and Emily Langridge are expectedly pretty in appearance and vocals as Marius and Cosette respectively. The “love at first sight” arc, complete with a meet cute in the town square, will set more than a few eyes rolling. 

Enter the hypotenuse in our love triangle, everyone’s favourite character Éponine. Kerrie Anne Greenland is plucky and feisty, but is also capable of becoming heart-achingly vulnerable during On My Own and A Little Fall of Rain. Her Australian accent creeps in quite often (listen out for how Greenland sings the word “only”), but it actually adds to ‘Ponine’s charm. She might just be this reviewer’s favourite performer in the show.

            The designated scene-stealers, Mr. and Mme. Thénardier, played by Cameron Blakely and Helen Walsh respectively, with great aplomb. The characters provide much of the comic relief in a relatively downbeat show (it’s there in the title), but also have to possess actual malice and make the audience’s skin crawl. Some of the slapstick in Master of the House is a little too silly, but an elaborate gag involving a blind traveller and his pet bird is downright hilarious. We have to laugh at the Thénardiers and also find them utterly despicable; Blakely and Walsh have got all the bases covered. Over at the barricade, Chris Durling imbues Enjolras with great vigour, but did go off-key a few times while issuing his calls to arms.

            Because of the nature of the 1900-page (in the original French) source novel, Les Misérables might not be a work that’s readily understandable in full, but it is a musical that is easy to connect with. The stirring music, powerful characters and dazzling eye candy stagecraft all make for a thrilling night at the theatre. Despite the long running time, there’s nary a dull moment in this show rife with incident. Rather than pulling one out of it completely, the moments of melodramatics and overall lack of subtlety add considerably to the charm of the show. Those attached to the original staging might bemoan what seems like change for change’s sake, but if you’re experiencing the show for the first time, it will be difficult to resist.

Summary: The storytelling is hampered by various practical limitations and some of the changes in this new production are unnecessary, but there’s no denying that this beloved musical remains a visual and aural treat, with powerful performers leading the cast.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Photos by Matthew Murphy, courtesy of MediaCorp VizPro International 

Join the Upri-sing: Les Misérables Singapore press call

For F*** Magazine

JOIN THE UPRI-SING
F*** Magazine peeks behind the barricade at the Les Misérables press call
By Jedd Jong

It has been 22 years since the barricades arose at the Kallang Theatre, when the blockbuster musical Les Misérables first arrived in Singapore. Arguably the best-known adaptation of Victor Hugo’s landmark 1862 historical novel, the story is predominantly set against the backdrop of 1832 June Rebellion in Paris. Composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricists Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel’s original French-language musical debuted in 1980, with the English adaptation featuring Herbert Kretzmer’s lyrics opening in 1985. Les Misérables has since become the longest-running musical on the West End, and has celebrated its milestones with all-star anniversary concerts. A feature film adaptation of the musical was released in 2012, winning three Oscars.

On Thursday morning, F*** was in attendance at the Esplanade Theatre as a press preview was staged, followed by interviews with the cast and crew. This production is at the tail-end of a two-year tour, which began in Australia and is fresh off their Philippines leg. This staging is different from how fans of the original might remember it; the show was reworked for its 25^th anniversary with new set designs and a re-orchestrated score. While iconic elements like the turntable and the barricade set that splits in half have been excised, Matt Kinley’s set design takes inspiration from the paintings of author Hugo, who was also an accomplished visual artist. The paintings, projected onto the backdrop, further enrich the depiction of 19^th Century France.

“We’re getting older, but it looks like the show is never aging, and is [in fact] getting kind of younger,” Boublil said. “All the people who play in the show now were not born when Claude-Michel and I were writing it!” Boublil told us about the process of adapting the 1500-page book into a musical. When it debuted in 1985, the English-language version was four hours long; this has now been whittled down to around three hours. Boublil stated that the novel is required reading in most French schools, “but you don’t understand it - you know it’s about injustice, but apart from that, you don’t get the heart and soul of it.”

Boublil is of the opinion that not everything makes a good musical, and described how he and Schönberg were convinced of Les Misérables’ potential. “Many of them are musicalized in an opportunistic way, or they don’t last,” he said of other source material. When asked whether or not he remembers the feeling of first seeing the musical on stage, Boublil replied “I remember it very well.” On the cast of the original West End production, which included such luminaries as Colm Wilkinson, Frances Ruffelle and Patti Lupone, Boublil commented “We had the crème de la crème of musical theatre, but we didn’t know it yet! We didn’t know that they would each become a star in his or her own right.” It might be hard to imagine now, but the show opened to scathing reviews on the West End. Boublil remembered a headline in an English daily which read “What can be worse than a bad musical? A French musical.” “That day was like a death sentence is ringing,” he recalled, thinking that the show would surely close inside of a month after those notices. “To my amazement and pride, it has become the world’s longest-running musical,” he said.

The lead role of Jean Valjean is played by Australian actor Simon Gleeson, who won a Helpmann award for the role. The character, an escaped convict who embarks on a journey of redemption, is one of the most prominent roles in musical theatre. When asked what aspect of Valjean he most connected with, Gleeson answered “My job is to connect with all of them. The frustration that he feels at the start, the anger that he feels towards the world at the start, the joy he gets when he meets little Cosette, I connect with all of them.”

The part Gleeson most looks forward to during each performance might surprise audiences, since it isn’t the grand solos like Valjean’s Soliloquy or Bring Him Home. “It’s meeting little Cosette. Meeting the little girl is the first time the character gets to smile. It’s the first time he goes ‘I can live for something now’.” He had quite the heart-warming story to relate about his daughter. “When I first was rehearsing for the audition years ago, I would sing Bring Him Home in the house and she actually said ‘I forbid you to sing in the house’.” Gleeson related to us. “I didn’t realise it was because she would go to her room and cry, because she locked on to the fact that something was wrong, that I wasn’t happy, that I was in pain and something was going on and she couldn’t comprehend it, she understood just from the music alone.” His son’s reaction after watching the show was a little less complicated. “He just liked the guns,” Gleeson chuckled.

Gleeson played Raoul in Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera. “The role I played was a horrible man – alcoholic, abusive, he was a terrible father, he was all the things that Jean Valjean isn’t,” Gleeson remarked, admitting “I had such a good time! It was really great.” Gleeson said the music plays an enormous part in helping him get into character. “The music is so evocative that you can’t helped but be seduced into where you need to be. Good luck if you can resist, you’d be a fool to try.” Gleeson worked briefly with Hugh Jackman, who played Valjean in the 2012 film. “He actually said to me ‘I don’t know how you do it eight times a week,’” Gleeson revealed. Gleeson said that, “frustratingly” enough, Jackman lives up to his reputation as being an affable person. He’s so generous and an incredibly talented guy, I can’t speak highly enough about Hugh.”

Valjean’s arch-nemesis Inspector Javert, a dogged police officer who pursues the fugitive over the course of almost two decades, is played by Earl Carpenter. The English actor has played Javert on Broadway and the title role in The Phantom of the Opera on the West End. He also performed in the 25^th anniversary concerts of both shows. “Everyone says he is a bad guy! Not at all!” Carpenter insisted, describing Javert as “a robust individual that knows one thing, which is his belief in the law”. “At that last moment, you see something very different happen to him, which is the fact that somebody has knocked his beliefs off the track and there’s no other way for him to deal with it, he doesn’t have the capacity to deal with it,” Carpenter said of Javert, who is ultimately undone by his own unwillingness to see Valjean as anything other than a criminal. Recalling his first time seeing the show at age 21, Carpenter said “it was just incredible to see something so epic but live, rather than seeing it on the screen, it was extraordinary.”

On Russell Crowe’s much-maligned portrayal of Javert in the 2012 film version, Carpenter pragmatically stated “There’s a reason for everything. Everybody makes decisions. That film had to appeal to a massive audience and to do that, maybe just Les Mis as a musical, wasn’t going to be enough to sell the film. It’s incredibly expensive to put a film on these days.” Coming to Crowe’s defence, Carpenter said “I know he confessed to being very nervous, in front of musical theatre singers. It was an incredibly scary time for him.” Carpenter shared that he thought that “there were moments of Russell’s character that were just absolutely spot on. His persona, for that role, was great.” Quite graciously, he added “there could be people who probably don’t like my singing, it doesn’t matter.”

Central to the story is the love triangle between Valjean’s adoptive daughter Cosette, the dashing, rich young Marius and Éponine, whose parents mistreated Cosette when she was in their care. Emily Langridge plays Cosette, Paul Wilkins plays Marius and Kerrie Anne Greenland plays Éponine. Most fans gravitate to the character of Éponine, who is placed squarely in the ‘friendzone’ by Marius. “Actually, the funny thing is that especially in the rehearsal room, I get to see a lot more of A Heart Full Of Love, where Cosette and Marius finally get to really see each other for the first time, and it’s so beautiful,” Kerrie admitted. “I know I’m Éponine, but it’s really awesome what they’ve got going on!”

“I think it’s hard for Cosette because she actually has gone through a lot,” Langridge said. “We see Cosette as a child and we see Éponine as a child and their roles really swap when they’re older. I think they’re really similar. Maybe if Éponine didn’t die, then they would be friends.”

Commenting on the perceived obtuseness displayed by Marius in his interactions with Éponine, Wilkins said “I think that comes with the territory of young love and experiencing it for the first time and kind of not knowing the signs.” He related a story from his own youth: “When I was in primary school, a girl used to kick me under the table in music. She kicked me, and I thought she hated me – little did I know, months later, that she really, really fancied me!”

Greenland added that Éponine might have stood a chance “if she had a bath”.

The actors spoke of going back to the source material, since much of the material was cut down in the adaptation process. “Cosette as a character has so much description in the book and in so much detail, where in the musical, her role is scaled down quite a lot, so I really try to get as much detail as I can from the book to give the role the most amount of depth in a short time,” Langridge said. This process was also helpful for the actors in creating something that resonated with them, rather than attempting to replicate past portrayals.

Out of all the characters, Fantine, Cosette’s biological mother, probably has the most number of tragic calamities befall her. Fantine sings what is arguably the best-known song in the show, I Dreamed a Dream. Australian actress Patrice Tipoki, who has starred in productions of The Lion King, Wicked and Beauty and the Beast, plays Fantine. She has been a fan of Les Misérables since she was young. “I used to sing Master of the House when people would come to the house, I don’t know how appropriate that was for a seven-year-old girl!” she laughed.

“It took a while for me to shake other people’s versions of this song, especially in my head, because I grew up with it,” she said, on the subject of making the role her own. “It was nice to have the rehearsal process that we do to be able to find my voice and my story that I wanted to tell. And of course, that still changes every night, depending on how I’m feeling and how receptive the audience is. It’s nice to know that everyone already loves the song, so it’s starting on a good note.” Fantine’s appearance in the musical, while impactful, is relatively brief. “Every night I go ‘maybe I’ll live tonight!’ It’s never happened yet, still trying!” Tipoki joked.

Co-director James Powell explained the lasting appeal of the show, saying “The story itself is about the human condition. It’s a classic story that’s just as relevant today as it was 400 (sic) years ago. The generosity of spirit is what I think people are moved by, in the face of adversity, they come through, and I think that’s what people find very uplifting. And the music helps a bit.” Working for super-producer Cameron Mackintosh has kept Powell on his toes. “When you work for Cameron Mackintosh, you are always evolving, you don’t stay still,” Powell said.

So, why should audiences go see Les Misérables? Producer Nick Allott, who is the managing director of Cameron Mackintosh Ltd., has the answer. “This is a story that covers everything: it covers love, it covers conflict between two people, it covers the triumph of good over evil, it has battles, it has epic scale and it has fantastically strong characters, characters you can fall in love or identity with,” he enthused. “I can’t think of anyone sitting there being bored. This is a show that picks you up and carries you through in this extraordinary way.”

Les Misérables runs from 31^st May to 24^th July at the Esplanade Theatre. Please visit http://www.sistic.com.sg/events/mis0716 for ticket information.

Spectral Emotion: Ghost The Musical Press Preview

For F*** Magazine

SPECTRAL EMOTION
F*** takes a sneak peek at Ghost The Musical
By Jedd Jong

The dead are alive in Ghost The Musical, based on the 1990 film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. The romantic fantasy that swept audiences off their feet with a tale of love transcending death has taken a new form as a stage musical. We were at the Sands Theatre in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore on Wednesday morning to catch a press preview of the production ahead of its opening night in Singapore.

Ghost The Musical tells the story of Sam Wheat, a Wall Street banker hopelessly in love with his artist girlfriend Molly. Following a violent mugging, Sam dies and finds himself stuck in limbo as a restless spirit, caught between this world and the next. As he uncovers the truth behind his murder, he attempts to warn Molly. He eventually reaches her through Oda Mae Brown, a con-artist and phony medium who comes into genuine contact with the deceased for the first time. Molly, along with Sam’s best friend and colleague Carl, are initially wary of Oda Mae, and Sam has to come to grips with his newfound afterlife as he watches over Molly from beyond the grave.

Ghost won two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Goldberg and Best Original Screenplay for Bruce Joel Rubin. Rubin adapted his own script into the musical’s libretto, with original music and lyrics from multiple Grammy Award-winners Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard. Stewart is known as one-half of Eurythmics and Ballard co-wrote Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, amongst other well-known pop hits.

In order to portray the other-worldly effects so integral to the film, Ghost The Musical employs much buzzed-about illusions designed by Paul Kieve. One of the signature scenes of the musical has its protagonist Sam walk through a solid door. Another has subway train commuters flung out of their seats by paranormal activity. Moviegoers will know Kieve’s work from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Hugo, for which he served as a magic consultant. Kieve holds the distinction of being the only illusionist to net the New York Drama Desk Award, which he won for Ghost The Musical.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any of the illusions at the press preview, which was a bit of a bummer after hearing so much about them. Thankfully, there is far more to the production than the novelty factor of its special effects, and three musical numbers were staged for us. These comprised the iconic pottery scene featuring The Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody, Nothing Stops Another Day and Oda Mae Brown’s big show-stopper I’m Outta Here. I’m Outta Here, in which Oda Mae fantasises about what she can do with an unexpected windfall, put some fancy choreography on display, with back-up dancers clad in glittery sequined suits and sunglasses.

After that, we got to talk to the cast, including Liam Doyle as Sam, Lucie Jones as Molly, David Roberts as Carl and Wendy Mae Brown as Oda Mae. The touring cast and crew, the majority of whom hail from the UK, have just arrived from the China tour, which took them to Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Chongqing, Zhuhai and Taipei. Preparations were in full swing for the show’s Singapore engagement in the background as the interviews were conducted, and while jet-lagged and exhausted, the performers were friendly and, if you’ll pardon the pun, in good spirits.

Doyle’s big break came when he won the reality competition show The Search for Troy Bolton as a teenager and got to play Troy Bolton in the UK touring production of High School Musical 2. Since then, Doyle’s credits have included Link Larkin in Hairspray (there’s a bit of Zac Efron theme going) and Fiyero in Wicked. “Whether you’ve seen the film or not, it doesn’t matter,” Doyle told us, calling Ghost “a timeless love story”. Discussing the emotional content of the show, he said “Everybody’s had that one person, or God forbid, might have that person that they didn’t get to say goodbye to and it helps so many people in the audience, you can hear them every night.” Doyle remarked that the show is physically and vocally demanding and it does take a lot of out of him, since he’s the lead. “I’ve worked it out: I’m off stage for three minutes in Act 1 and seven minutes in Act 2 and the show’s two and a half hours long,” he stated. “The music is very hard to sing, but so rewarding to sing.”

Jones’ career also has its roots in a reality TV singing contest, albeit a higher-profile one: she was a finalist in 2009’s season of The X Factor. She has since had roles on the TV shows Midsomer Murders and The Sarah Jane Adventures and has been a cast member in musicals like Les Misérables and American Psycho. Her preparation for the part of Molly in Ghost included taking pottery lessons and visiting a medium. She has not had any supernatural encounters of her own, but was open to learning about various beliefs in life after death. “The more you understand the mind-set of people who believe in these things, people who don’t believe in these things, people who have had experiences, people who think it’s all a load of rubbish, it’s so amazing to then find your journey through it and understand it yourself,” she said. Jones told us that she was rejected for many jobs “because people said I couldn’t act, and now I’m doing a huge acting role and am really enjoying it.”

Roberts’ West End credits include Mamma Mia and Assassins “He’s a character that you could feel sorry for,” Roberts said of Carl. “He’s jealous of Sam and what he has and even though they’re two best friends, they’re like brothers, he’s not happy with that. He’s always wanting more, such is his life, he’s always striving for that. When asked what advice he would give to actors considering a theatre career, he said “Don’t give up, if it’s what you love to do, stick with it. You need to love it, because otherwise it can be a very, very hard thing to do, hard business.” Roberts isn’t a fan of the way reality TV contests like X Factor promise instant stardom. “It’s a cattle market, it’s getting worse and worse every year. You’ve got an audience screaming numbers of people they don’t want.” He clarified that he doesn’t blame the participants (his co-star Jones was an X-Factor finalist after all), but rather the process, which he likens to “a machine”.

One could say that Wendy Mae Brown was destined to play Oda Mae Brown, based on her name. Brown’s has acted in productions such as Rent, Porgy and Bess, Little Shop of Horrors and South Pacific. The character of the phony mystic who is suddenly contacted by an actual ghost is arguably the most memorable in the movie. Brown said she was given “absolute freedom” to make the role her own, adding “Your first thought is ‘oh, this is Whoopi Goldberg, I’ve got to top this,’ but then you have to let it go. So I let it go.” She had a particularly memorable story about her first time watching the film. “I remember really clearly because I’d just done a terrible audition for Trevor Nunn,” she recalled. Dejected after failing in front of the renowned theatre impresario, she slinked into the cinema to watch the film Ghost, which moved her to tears. “It takes a lot to make me cry at a movie. I’m not really a crying woman, but…I went on the journey from the start.” Possibly displaying a hint of psychic ability, Brown told us “I always said to myself, ‘this would be a great musical’.”

From what we’ve seen today, ditto.

Lucie Jones (Molly) and Liam Doyle (Sam)

Ghost The Musical is produced by GWB Entertainment in association with BASE Entertainment Asia and is running from 4 – 15 November 2015 at the Sands Theatre, MasterCard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands. Ticket prices are from S$85.

Grease - musical review

F*** Magazine

GREASE 

25 April – 18 May 2014

Grand Theatre, Mastercard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands Singapore

            It’s automatic, it’s systematic, it’s hydromatic and now Greased Lightning has pulled up to the Grand Theatre at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The musical Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, which debuted in Chicago in 1971, has remained in the public consciousness for over 40 years. This is thanks in part to its hugely popular 1978 film adaptation that starred John Travolta long before he was swapping visages with Nicolas Cage or mangling the names of Broadway stars/Disney movie voice actors. Co-starring Olivia Newton-John, the film was a smashing success, and is still the top-grossing musical film in the United States to date.

            Set in 1959 at Rydell High School, Grease tells the story of Danny Zuko’s romance with Australian lass Sandy Dumbrowski, with whom he shared a summer fling. Much to both their surprise, Sandy stays on and attends Rydell High. Danny is a greaser of the T-Birds gang, while Sandy hangs out with the popular clique of girls known as the Pink Ladies. A coming-of-age tale featuring such familiar themes as adolescent rebellion, friendship and young love set against a particularly nostalgic backdrop, it’s easy to see why so many hold Grease so dear.

            Above anything else, Grease is a lot of fun. It’s an idealised view of the ‘50s, offering up caricatures of the different types of students populating any given American high school at the time and, of course, featuring actors who all look way too old to be high schoolers but who give it their all anyway. The humour is more slapstick and pantomime than in the movie, but it works on stage and there’s an earnest silliness that’s not obnoxious or self-conscious. The show’s definitely better when it’s in comedy mode than during its dramatic moments. Following a sold-out Australian tour, this David Gilmore-directed production will return down under after its Singapore leg.

Featuring enjoyable number after enjoyable number, those memorable Jacobs/Casey tunes (with additional songs by John Farrar, Louis St. Louis, Scott Simon and Barry Gibb) are enhanced by Terry Parsons’ set design and Andreane Neofitou’s costumes. The interior of the Burger Palace is period-accurate and authentic while Marty’s room is stylised, with something of a Dr. Suess flavour to it, neon hearts descending from the rafters during “Freddy My Love”. Of course, there’s also the transformation of a beat-up jalopy into the glittering Greased Lightning, during the song of the same name.

The choreography by Arlene Phillips is also entertaining, featuring several spots of dirty dancing and a trio of towel-clad jocks swaying their hips to “Those Magic Changes” in a scene set in the locker room. The orchestra, led by music director/keyboardist Luke Hunter, is positioned in an elevated alcove, spending most of the show hidden by backdrops but revealed during several numbers. The orchestra has costume changes too – starting the show in polyester pink shirts, then sporting leather jackets and then bejewelled blazers.

            Stephen Mahy stars as Danny, promoted to the male lead after having played Kenickie during the Australian tour. Bearing a passing resemblance to Johnny Knoxville, he’s sufficiently charismatic and has good comic timing even if his vocals aren’t quite as strong as Gretel Scarlett’s. As Sandy, Scarlett gets to keep her Australian accent and is sweet and charming, utterly nailing the show-stopper “Hopelessly Devoted to You”. Of the T-Birds, Scott McConnell as Doody is the stand-out, effortlessly crooning “Those Magic Changes”. Lucy Maunder is a commanding presence as Rizzo if not completely tough-as-nails and Jason Capewell threatens to steal the show in his dual roles as DJ Vince Fontaine and the Teen Angel, hitting those super-high notes in a most fabulous fashion.

            The opening night performance featured a cameo appearance from local DJ Vernetta Lopez of oldies station Gold 90.5. While she was clearly having fun, her comic improv skills did leave much to be desired. If you’re a fan of the film, seeing Grease live will certainly be a thrill, but do be advised that many iconic images from the movie are absent (this reviewer was looking forward to Sally and Danny riding off into the sunset in Greased Lightning, but that didn’t happen) and the story structure is somewhat different from how it’s presented in the movie. At the end of the night, it was clear that “Grease” pretty much still is the word. If you’re in the mood for some fun, glossy nostalgia, break out the pomade, slick back your hair and make a date with the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies!

Jedd Jong