Grease The Musical at National Theater

When I first heard that Grease The Musical was coming to town I was excited enough to look for tickets, but coordinating it with my travel schedule seemed too difficult at the time. A friend of mine recently tried to get tickets but it was virtually sold out, so if you want to see it, I would get tickets before it makes it to your town. Luckily, the same friend won some tickets at a bar this past weekend. I ended up finally seeing it this past Wednesday after a very satisfying meal at Rosa Mexicana.
If you are a Grease fan you most likely will enjoy the show. For a traveling show I think it is pretty good. I am not sure how they manage to travel with all the stage props. They must employ a whole caravan of semis or a couple of trains that are lugging it all around the country! So you won’t feel that they skimped at all on the sets or special effects. For this reason, I think the moderately high price (for a show at National Theater) would be worth it (if we actually had to pay for our tickets). Also you get treated to short separate performance by Taylor Hicks at the end of the show. I must confess. We didn’t know who Taylor HIcks was. When he burst from the Ice Cream cone during the Teen Angle number we thought it was George Clooney! But, we knew that George Clooney can’t sing. This guy could. And actually he sang quite well and everybody else seemed to know who he was. At times some of the cast seems to be taking a breather but they always come back at high energy for the main numbers like Beauty School Drop out, Your the One that I want, and Greece lightning. The dramatic effect from the spare no expense props really helps highlight and enhance these numbers too.
I would describe the performance of most of the players as adequate with one or two exceptions. Laura D’Andre played the role of Rizzo exceptionally well. Her star power never flickered. She was ‘on’ for the whole performance. We were really impressed by her voice and overall performance. Also, Will Bloom gave a notably good performance as Roger.
Take the kids. Take your parents. Take your significant other. This show is fun and has universal appeal. If you are a Grease fan, you won’t be disappointed.