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Under June Pyskacek’s direction, Kingston Mines was known primarily for its avant-garde fare, reflecting the counterculture of the late 1960s and early ’70s. In addition to its own productions–including Jean-Claude van Itallie’s The Serpent–it hosted the gender-bending Godzilla Rainbow Troupe in shows like Whores of Babylon and the Free Theater in the rock opera Aesop’s Fables. But Grease, which affectionately spoofed the teen culture of the late 1950s, was determinedly retro. Some even found it reactionary, believing the characters’ black leather jackets and worker boots smacked of a fascist aesthetic. But most responded positively to the show’s cunning blend of irony and nostalgia. It was both a welcome escape from the turbulence of Nixon’s America and a wry critique of conformism. The point of the show, after all, is that the cool rebels who populate the story are every bit as obsessed with peer pressure and living up to the status quo as the squares they despise.
That production was marked by a scruffy honesty, gritty edginess, and streetwise Chicago quality sadly absent from the current touring edition, whose strident vocals, cluttered staging, and a blaring band obscure the clever lyrics of the original songs–witty tongue-in-cheek tributes to early rock ‘n’ roll–by Jim Jacobs and the late Warren Casey. (Contrary to reports published elsewhere, the original Grease was genuinely a musical, not merely a play with incidental music.)
The 1978 film version of Grease also has Chicago roots. The movie was written and produced by Highland Park’s Allan Carr, who co-created the ’60s TV show Playboy Penthouse here before heading to Hollywood to make his name as an artists’ manager, promotions expert, and party planner. It became the most popular movie musical of all time, capitalizing on the disco craze by adding a new title tune written by the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb and sung by Frankie Valli. (That song, along with several others penned for the movie, are included in the current touring production.)
