Grease

As the company had a number of understudies I was asked if it would be possible for someone to go the see the show on another evening when they were performing. I was happy to accommodate this request and David Street, Southern Youth Advisor for NODA East, went along to see the Thursday evening production. I have incorporated his feedback specifically on the understudies in the report.  It makes for a long report but the performance and company deserve the full feedback.

I do enjoy the energy that BOSSY cast members display in their performances and this show was no exception.  The entire cast was energetic and practically all of them gave 100% in their performance.  There were just one or two who seemed a bit embarrassed about being onstage but I suspect this was because this was a fairly new experience for them and I hope that they will lose these inhibitions as they get more familiar with performing.

This was a relatively young cast, BOSSY having lost a lot of their seasoned members who have gone on to performing arts colleges or to develop a career in theatre.  Most of the understudies were for the female parts so Oliver Ward, played Danny in every performance.  He gave a good strong performance in the part although I felt that he was a bit tentative in some of his songs.  He seemed more comfortable as the jock than as the rebel but he produced a good character.

Sandy was played by Heather Nye and understudied by Anna Jones.  Heather’s performance was marred by the fact that she obviously had a cold or bad throat which affected both her speaking and her singing voice. She carried on and, under the circumstance, she did a good job.  I would have liked to see her displaying much more raunchiness when she sang You’re The One That I Want.  She looked the part in her costume but she was still too sweet and nice for my taste.   This was a golden opportunity, poor voice or not, to show that she could be more than sweet little Sandra D and I am afraid she didn’t quite pull it off.  However her performance was good for the rest of the show so she can be forgiven.  Anna’s performance as Sandy was also good; she displayed a good innocence, maintaining character throughout. She had good clear diction, good use of facial expressions and great use of eyes and emotion in her singing, which was a pleasure to see.  She, also, did not quite pull off the transformation that is needed for the final song.   It is a tricky thing to do but it is something that both actresses should think about, so they can develop a wider range of characterisations.

Rizzo was portrayed by Lydia Abbot with Francesca Green understudying.  I thought Lydia was simply outstanding in the role.  She displayed a very strong characterisation and this was maintained throughout the show.   She commanded the stage when she was speaking and it was very clear that she was the leader of the Ladies.  Francesca had a nice singing voice with good emotion which needs to be extended into her dialogue. Better use of her diaphragm for both disciplines would help her with natural projection. David would have liked to have seen more facial expressions from her with more ‘attitude’ as leader of the Pink Ladies.

Frenchy was played by Kerrie Meister and understudied by Eleanor Rickenbach.   I felt that Kerrie’s performance didn’t quite capture the ditziness that the part needed.  Her performance was good and her dialogue was clear, but it just didn’t really give a good picture of the dizzy blonde that was the original concept of the part.  Eleanor’s characterisation of Frenchy was brilliant as she used natural facial expressions, great pace, tone and use of diction in her dialogue. Every time Eleanor was on stage our eyes were just drawn towards her presence.  As an actress as she brought such warmth to her performance, which never strayed all the time she was on stage whether she was in the fore or back round.  This part was made for Eleanor.

Jan was played by Amy Hollingsworth and understudied by Maisie Freeman.    Amy had great use of face and she projected well, her dialogue was well paced, clear and had good variation of pitch and tone.  Maisie had great use of face and projection with a very believable performance. Her character was maintained throughout but she does need to slow diction down at times to get the most out of the dialogue and to remain confident in the character even when in the background.  One thing that both actresses did was to mime eating the food.  This is just not good enough, Jan was supposed to stuff her face with food at every opportunity and Roger (played very well by Jake Hunter) showed exactly how this can be done to maximum effect as he ate his bread roll and delivered his lines.  They were a bit muffled, so he didn’t get it absolutely right but he did at least eat the food!  More of Jake’s performance later!

The part of Miss Lynch was played by Tomi Bello and understudied by Helen Bloom.  Our comments on these two characterisations are remarkably similar.  As the first person to speak they had a golden opportunity to make their mark but, in both cases, their dialogue was too fast and it was difficult to hear the dialogue.  Tomi had the edge as she created a stronger character with attitude to deal with the recalcitrant student, whereas Helen’s character was not as strong.

Probably the only female lead who did not have an understudy was Zarah Rahman who played Patty.  This was a good characterisation which was maintained throughout, even when she was in the back ground.  Zarah had the pushy Patty spot on.

I liked Josh Rees interpretation as Eugene and David felt that Josh Mclean also did a good job with the part, which he only understudied for the first half of the show.

So, onto the T Birds!  Jonathan O’Neill played Kenicke with a nice light touch and he maintained the character throughout.  He has good stage presence and his accent and delivery were well paced and completely accurate.   Alfie Gardner played Doody and his characterisation was excellent.  He had the audience eating out of his hand every time he had dialogue to deliver.  He created an excellent character for Doody and maintained it throughout the show.  His facial expression were a complete delight and I look forward to seeing more of this young man in the future.  Alex Kelly (Sonny) and Kieron Trenoweth (Frankie) gave good supporting performances as the other T’Birds. 

And so to Jake (Roger). I know that Jake only took the part on three weeks before the performance dates and he did an excellent job.  He is a very experienced actor and I have seen him in other roles with other societies. At first he was quite restrained and did not stand out any more than was necessary, however, as the show progressed his character got stronger and he was in danger of smothering the other performers.  It is a fine, fine line to tread in these circumstances and, as it was the last performance he can be forgiven for letting rip a bit more.  However it did unbalance the performance just a little bit.

One final word for the two Teen Angels, Billy Brown and Oliver Harvey; that word is BRILLIANT!   They produced an excellent performance which was over the top enough to be funny but restrained enough to keep it from degenerating into farce.  Well done to both of you.

I could go on about everyone in the cast, it seems unfair not to mention more of them but I am running out of space and I do have some other general comments about the production itself.

Costumes were, in the main good although miniskirts were simply not worn in the fifties so the girls who were wearing them were completely wrongly dressed.  The straight skirts should have been below the knee and very tight; they were called hobble skirts for a reason!  The result of wearing these miniskirts was a display of legs that was completely out of character for the period.  This is a small detail but made the ‘look’ of the show completely wrong.

Lighting was good but the sound was not.  I could see that many of the cast were wearing radio mics but this did not seem evident from the sound.  There seemed to be no reverb on the mics, which would have helped Heather to have a better sound despite her poor throat.  Fortunately many of the more experienced members of the cast were projecting well, otherwise we might not have heard as much of the dialogue as we did.  It sounded as though the mics were not turned up for the dialogue and only partially turned up for the songs.  Having said that the band, who were mostly the same age as the cast on stage, produced a good sound and would not have drowned the singers out if they had been properly amplified.

Finally the scenery was well conceived, simple but effective and the cast made the changes with speed and no fuss.   Overall this was another good production from this society of young people.  Thank you.

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