Grease is the word

And, yes, it's a bad word

by Robert von Stein Redick

Grease plays through September 3 at the Ogunquit Playhouse. Call 207-646-5511.

SUMMER LOVIN' don't mean a thing.

For some of us, it's hard to remember a time before Grease. The show has never been too far away since its 1971 debut at the old Kingston Mines Theatre in Chicago. That number had the real grit: one cast member, Gary Houston (now a staff writer at the Tribune), recalls hours of coaching in the arts of Zippo-flicks and spitballs, to say nothing of those constantly combed, oil-sculpted hairdos. Creators Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey believed in their little world, and the payoff makes faith look like a good investment.

It would take six years of exponentially increasing triumphs -- bewildering to that class of New York gatekeepers who can't believe in non-Broadway juggernauts until flattened by them -- before Paramount's film version lifted the play into the stratosphere. Literally, almost: what other movie dared raise its voice in the Star Wars hurricane of 1977? Grease succeeded because, disguised, it employed much the same arsenal as Lucas's film: a timeless story, visual extravagance, characters who produced between them a wild, corny chemistry. Topping it all was the score: a series of `50s-style joyrides spiked with just enough irony to suit a post-Vietnam America. Stage companies ready to make use of these blessings have raked in the crowds for 30 years.

In director Jacques Stewart's incarnation, the blessings are mostly in disarray, though there are some lively exceptions. Indeed, the note of liveliness is struck early and often. Marching down the aisles as the first scene opens, the cast is mannerly as a children's choir, but once they take the stage, all hell breaks loose: off come the graduation gowns, out come the black leather, the tight skirts, the combs. The nerdy valedictorian (Gary Ng) and presiding teacher (Mary Callahan) are razzed off the stage. Hips begin to thrust, torsos sway back, heads bob like chickens. A rowdy doo-wop takes over. Everyone is wild, and at the same time cool.

Never mind that it's silly. Never mind that nobody's distinguishable from anyone else, or that the set's psychedelic reds, yellows, and blues appear color-matched to the Beatles's uniforms in Sergeant Pepper's, eight years and several bad trips away from Rydell High, 1959. We can accept the Greasers' world at face value for the moment, because face value -- that is, appearance -- is largely what it's about.

Unfortunately all this churning motion doesn't resolve into specifics. Except in the heat of a dance, most of which are well executed, the players look crowded and uncomfortable. No one gets a definitive spotlight. Pursuing a high-octane buzz of activity, the production loses sight of its individuals.

Leading man Todd Dubail (as cooler-than-thou Danny Zuko) fights valiantly against this washout effect. His swagger, his slang-heavy voice, even his dancing survive the inevitable Travolta comparisons; nor does he ape the screen icon's moves and gestures, familiar as family anecdotes to many in the chamber. Sadly, Dubail's light is largely hidden in the body count. Danny's emergence as a character seems to matter less to this production than does the aforementioned buzz.

If Danny is partially eclipsed, lovelorn Sandy (Linette Miles) is as nearly absent as a lead role could be. The dance competition towards which the entire first act builds ignores her entirely -- she is not so much spurned by Danny as discarded by the script. For most of her on-stage time she is crowded almost to the curtain, looking winded and amnesiac. True, "Sandra Dee's" is not a big speaking part, but that is all the more reason to position her prominently. She is the girl who comes of age, the inhibited one who won't remain so, the lit fuse. Why smother her in furry bathrobes, frumpy cheerleaders' uniforms, crowds?

The bomb at the end of the fuse is of course Sandy's rebirth, when the cool girls transform her from fading violet to the kind of hot chili Danny can jive with. But here the lovely Ms. Miles is done another injustice, for she struts on in a leopard-print body suit. Costume designers, take note: the spots are there for camouflage, not stunning entrances.

The same shroud of vagueness caught other aspects of the production up in its folds. A rumble with a rival gang that never shows up is outstandingly pointless; Roger the "mooning king of Rydell" is not permitted to moon anyone, popular as such a defined moment could be. Sheer audibility came and went as the singers fought the whims of the microphone and the musicians in the pit. Towards the close, even connecting dialog between songs falls by the wayside, making the very reason for breaking into song rather elusive.

By now I trust my own point is anything but. This Grease starts no fires, because it doesn't allow anyone to strike sparks. This is a shame. At the play's heart is a cry for individuation, a cultural moment that, for all its props and hierarchies, allowed some few American kids to find themselves. The kids and the look and that time of awakening are gone, and it will take something more than what's on stage in Ogunquit to call their rowdy spirits back.

Robert von Stein Redick can be reached at robvsredick@earthlink.net.