Theater Review—

‘Grease’ Is An Excellent Summer Choice

For Downtown Cabaret Theater

By Julie Stern

BRIDGEPORT — For its blockbuster summer presentation this year, Bridgeport’s Downtown Cabaret Theater has chosen to do Grease and it’s an excellent decision. The  show is ideally suited to the Cabaret’s strengths: top-notch singing and dancing talent, excellent musical direction, uniformly high production standards, and a friendly, laid-back environment, with theater-going families invited to picnic at their tables while they wait for the show to start.

Grease is a paean to 1950s high schools, and particularly to those kids known as “Greasers” – the tough guys with long greasy ducktails – and their girls with teased hair and satin club jackets.

Originally written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, the show was meant to be a satirical look at the manners, morals and music of teens of that era. In fact, the songs are far better than those it was meant to satirize, and it is the songs that are the heart of the show.

The Downtown Cabaret rendition sticks closely to the 1978 John Travolta-Olivia Newton John movie version, charting the progress of the romance between Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski. Newcomer Sandy must decide who she wants to be: when she transfers to Rydell High in her senior year, does she travel with the respectable preppy types, represented by cheerleader Patty Simcox and honor student Eugene Florczyk, or does she continue her summer romance with handsome Danny, and spend her time with his crowd, the Burger Palace Boys and their Pink Lady consorts?

The songs reveal the characters and move the plot along,  alternating between rock and roll numbers like “Summer Nights,” “Greased Lightning” (Kenickie’s tribute to his car), “Born to Hand Jive”  and  “Rock ‘n ’Roll Party Queen,” with  those heartfelt ballads “It’s Raining on Prom Night,” “Beauty School Dropout” and “Alone At A Drive-in Movie.”

In most productions of Grease that I have seen in the past, it always seemed as though Rizzo, the toughest of the Pink Ladies), had the best part, with her two songs “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” (making fun of Sandy for her virginal ways) and “There are Worse Things I Could Do.”

Kristin Lewis Gorman, who plays Rizzo as a Stockard Channing look-alike, does a very creditable job, but musical director Patrick Q. Kelly has chosen to tone her numbers down, with the result that Russell Ardin Koplin’s Sandy comes off as a stronger character.

Todd Dubail, a DCT veteran, does a fine job as Danny, making him completely irresistible. No wonder Sandy crosses over to the tough side of the lunchroom.

In short, the music is great, the dancing is wonderful, and this show is bound to delight all its many fans, as well as those who might be seeing it for the first time.

(Performances continue every weekend through August 4, with tickets priced at $32 and $35. The theater, at 263 Golden Hill Street in Bridgeport, can be contacted by calling 203-576-1636.)