Cultural Activity #3

Grease

1.      I went to the musical Grease put on by Murray City. It was held at the Murray outdoor amphitheater which is located right by Parkside Elementary (5025 South State Street)

2.      This play was a reenactment of the movie Grease. It’s a love story between Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson. They meet over the summer in Australia and fall in love. They believe that when they say good-bye on the beach sharing their last kiss that they won’t ever see each other again. To their surprise Sandy and her parents end up moving to America and she ends up being enrolled at the same exact school as Danny. They can’t decide if they should stay together because Danny is very different at school. He is the leader the T-birds (black –jacket greasers) and it would be uncool for him to date a goody good like Sandy. They end up working it out and both change a little so that they can be together.

3.      This performance technicality wise was great. They costumes were amazing because they looked just like the ones from the movie. All the girls wore mid-length, pink, girly dresses while the guys had slicked back hair with jeans, black leather jackets, and white undershirts. I love that style on guys so I really liked the costumes, I think it’s sexy. Another thing that made it great is that was outside which made lighting not such a distraction. They didn’t have to have huge spotlights all over the place following the main person distracting you from the background actors. Some people like crazy lighting, but I don’t so I enjoyed the simplicity of the lighting in this play. I thought the quality was average. It was not professionally done which hurt it but it made it more relatable. A lot of the actors in this production I actually personally knew. Jenna Lewis one of my best friends from church was in it and so were her two sisters. Also my old teacher in elementary school was in it which was fun to watch. Having this a semi-professional performance caused some mistakes to occur but like I said made it more relatable and interesting because I knew some people that were in it since they live in my community. When I come to think about it really the only mistakes I can think of that happened were singing mistakes. You could tell that the people asked to do solos were not professionally trained singers. They did their best of course but it was pitchy and kind of all over the place.

4.      The main issues in this play that were brought up were social issues. It brings up all the stupid high school drama that you would see at school which was relatable to me. The issue was cliques. Sandy is from one clique at school, the pink pretty ladies and Danny is from the T-birds aka the greasers. This issue is huge to them because each different clique is so different from all the others cliques. People put so much value on what clique you are in and they honestly think that, that determines your personality. Danny and Sandy thought that their relationship would never in a million years work because of their different friends and interests. Sandy doesn’t like how different Danny is with his friends then he was with her back in Australia on the beach. They reached the conclusion that they love each other and so they decided to make it work. Danny would ditch his friends and hang with Sandy sometimes so that she knew he cared. Sandy tried to be more daring and spontaneous so that her and Danny could have fun together. It ended up working great and they kind of brought both of their friend groups together and ended up working great more in love than ever.

5.      The music from this play influenced its effectiveness at bringing out the emotions displayed in this play to the audience. Sometimes it was hard to tell how Sandy was feeling exactly because she is quiet and reserved so the music/solos helped you to know what in her head she was thinking. Also Danny, not really the quiet type but not one to talk about his emotions because that wasn’t the cool thing to do, the music helped you know how they were both feelings. I loved the song Summer Nights because it was absolutely hilarious first of all and secondly helped you understand how their relationship was back in Australia before the stress of high school and friends screwed with it. I think if the music in this play was randomly played in a specific order without any actors talking kind of like an opera that it would tell its own beautiful stories. It explains sadness, excitement, longing, etc.

6.      The only thing that I knew about this play before I saw it was watching bits and pieces of the movie on TV. After reading about it some on the web I found out that the musical was set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School. It followed ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love, cars, and drive-ins. The score attempts to recreate the sounds of early rock and roll.  It was meant to show the raunchy, raw, aggressive, and vulgar side of high school. The show tackles social issues like teenage pregnancy and gang violence; its themes include love, friendship, teenage rebellion, sexual exploration during adolescence, and, to some extent, class consciousness/class conflict.

7.      I would not recommend this play to others because it was kind of offensive. It definitely did show the raw and vulgar side of high school. I know that that’s what they were trying to portray and that, that was the point of the production of the movie in the first place but I didn’t expect that in this family setting that they would show such graphic things. I felt like the entire play consisted of aggressive making out and profanities. I went with my family for family night and I left feeling awkward because I had younger siblings with me that I didn’t think should be exposed to PG 13 material at 8 and 9. I also didn’t like that they had such young kids starring in the play. They had many siblings of the main characters that were no older than 7 that were also being exposed to adult behavior.

8.      My personal reaction to this production was entertained but offended. It was great at making me laugh and bringing out a lot of emotions in me but I didn’t like how vulgar it was. I love the story line of this play because I am in a similar relationship so definitely relate. I was excited to see the ending of the play to find out if they ended up together since I had never watched the whole movie. So I guess overall I had a negative reaction to this specific production in itself but I loved the story that was portrayed.