The April 28 Reader featured Cynthia Gallaher’s story about the Pink Ladies, a club started in the mid-1950s by northwest-side Catholic girls who were either going to Taft High School or knew somebody who was. Jim Jacobs went to Taft, too, and when he and Warren Casey were writing their 1971 paean to pomade, Grease, they named its girl gang the “Pink Ladies.” The club’s alumnae have apparently been struggling with the fallout ever since. It’s not easy having your adolescence co-opted into what turned out to be one of America’s best-known musicals.
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According to Gallaher, some of the real Pink Ladies complain that their fictional counterparts are tougher and more sexually knowing than they ever were. Well, in American Theater Company’s entertaining revival—called The Original Grease, but actually a remix from various sources—the girls smoke, swear, and sneak alcohol all right. But the alcohol they sneak is tawny port, and they do it at a slumber party. For the most part, these kids are bad in the tamest possible ways.
Danny has already lied to his buddies about how far he got with Sandy, and her straitlaced presence puts his street cred in jeopardy. So he does what any status-conscious, socially inept teen would do—he freezes her out. The once and future couple spend the rest of the show literally dancing around each other, trying to figure out this thing called love.
These are questions limited to Sandy, though. The rest of Paparelli’s large cast are delightful. Jessica Diaz is a sexy, sharp Rizzo who kicks her superficially silly solo, “Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee,” into a fascinatingly dark place. Rob Colletti and Sadieh Rifai have a charming bit when, as the two fat kids of the group, they finally give in to liking each other. Rifai, in particular, manifests an I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-myself energy that’s hilariously weird and very apt. Tyler Ravelson is simply fun to watch as goofy budding cartoonist Miller. I could go on through the rest of the Pink Ladies and Burger Palace Boys to the supporting roles. For a musical with some very creepy implications, The Original Grease is an awful lot of fun.
Through 6/5: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron, 773-409-4125, atcweb.org, $10-$40.
