Summer Nights and Hand Jives: A Review of ‘Grease’

When Grease: The Musical first premiered in 1971, it served as an ode by its creators to the culture of 1950s America. The show employed numerous tropes, from drive-in movies to rollerblading waitresses, which harkened back to a gilded age of American life when affluence, effervescence, and inconsequence was the norm. The 1978 film version further encapsulated these sentiments with over-the-top, yet electrifying performances by stars Olivia Newton John and John Travolta. Though never considered a dramatic masterpiece, Grease has always provided its audiences with a brief respite from the world with its music, light-heartedness, and charm.

A half-century later, that charm still holds up in a production of Grease by Nicolas Maynulet ’27 in his Yale directorial debut. The show, which ran from February 27 to March 1 at the Off Broadway Theater, stayed the course as a standard, traditional rendition—fitting given the story’s themes of developing American values—and provided audiences with an enjoyable experience overall.

The story follows two friend groups—the pink ladies, who gossip, giggle, and fantasize about their prospective boyfriends, and the titular “greasers,” who obsess over slick hair, fast cars, and attractive women—as they navigate the all-consuming passions of high school life in middle America. When the new girl in town, Sandy (played by Zaida Rio Polanco ’26), shares a summer fling with the leader of the greasers, Danny (played by Joseph Kayne ’27), the pair spend the rest of the school year deciding whether to commit to a relationship, all while Sandy attempts to make friends and Danny begins to pursue new passions.

With a plot more loosely constructed than a sandcastle, the show relies upon the strength of its cast. Thankfully for this production, there was no shortage of talent.

Rio Polanco and Sabrina Strapp ’28, who played Rizzo (bully-turned-friend of Sandy), delivered laudable performances as both actresses and singers. Rio Polanco’s rousing rendition of “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” alongside Strapp’s “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” were the highlights of the evening as power ballads that provoked uproarious applause from the audience.

Similarly, Kayne’s portrayal of Danny was well done and met with approval by the crowd. A difficult part with a wide vocal range, Danny requires an actor to be suave, rude, and endearing all at the same time. Kayne managed this task admirably, confidently performing the song “Sandy” and vigorously dancing in the hand jive contest.

The production was traditional in most ways: the setting remained the 1950s Chicago suburbs, the plot took no new directions, and the jokes were as crude (and corny) as ever. One noticeable difference, however, was the gender imbalance within the cast: out of a total of 17 characters (at least eight of which are written as male), only three men performed in the show. This unfortunate fact, which I presume was the result of a small audition pool rather than an artistic decision, left a bit of a hole in the sound of the show, which relies upon the interplay of male and female voices. I found myself wanting a bit more tenor and bass during the songs than was able to be produced by the soprano- and alto-heavy cast.

With that said, those men who did perform in the show did so excellently. Freshmen August Taylor and Max Ondik, who played a pair of Danny’s greaser goons, both sang and acted with intelligence, care, and comedic sensibility. Taylor performed strongly in “Greased Lightning,” while Ondik hit soaring notes in the hilarious and aptly-titled “Mooning.” The two were welcome additions to the cast and are sure to have bright futures in the Yale theater world.

In the end, simplicity was this production’s strongest quality. Grease is a show which demands that its audience find a groove with the characters, music, and setting. By sticking to the basics, Maynulet and his team of designers, producers, and cast members demonstrated why Grease has been a hit for the past fifty years. At a time when most productions aim for difference at the expense of intelligence, Grease, with its predictability and spectacle, proved once again its usefulness as a relief from the mundane aspects of everyday life.