Jim Jacob’s and Warren Casey’s 1971 musical, based on a high school in 1950s "greasers" – the working class kids of America at the time as they were known, is an absolute charmer of a production and also a tough nut to crack. But Laila Alvares’s production did perfect justice to the play and the sheer vibrancy that made Grease- Grease and Travolta- Travolta in the film version.

Anyone who follows theatre in Bangalore knows all too well of Laila Alvares’s penchant for musicals and her ability to pull them off with tremendous style and aplomb. This one is no exception either. It leaves you with the kind of energy and buoyancy that you have been longing to see on the stage.

Grease is about high school working kids of the 1950s America. This particular story deals with a love affair, but that is hardly the plot.

Laila Alvares brings to fore the blistering color of the charming youth of the age. This one has a tremendous production value, with an extensive set and a multitude of costumes. Add to that a quite terrific live band to churn out all the numbers, a group of (like twenty odd) singers who can belt those numbers from Grease like they were there when it was being composed, and of course dancers cum actors who could really move to the beat and own it, and you have the most delectable potpourri you could’ve asked for.

In a musical fiesta like Grease sometimes even bad acting is pardoned or ignored, but there was no need for it here, for the acting was up to the mark to accompany the dancing and the music, which was the obvious star. It is not the sort of layered script that demands high performances from characters, but bad acting can really stick out like a sore thumb. All that was required was to have an optimal amount of it to keep supporting the dance and the music, and that it did quite capably.

Laila Alvares and her quite capable army pulls off yet another musical in great style. This one’s not a theatrical marvel, nor does it try to pretend to be, but its the kind of theatre that only Laila Alvares does around here in Bangalore, and perhaps for that reason alone you will want to catch it when it happens.

Grease has shows from 31st July to 3rd August 2010 at Chowdiah Memorial hall.  Differential ticket pricing.

But there is a lot else to watch Perch’s Miss Meena for. A superb set of actors who double as singers, instrumentalists (not to mention winged moths). The hallmark of great acting is to stand out even when you’re doing nothing. Witness "Ravi Anna" become a statue to see what I mean.

Miss Meena‘s script is loosely based on The Visit by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt. A major shift from the original is in making the play revolve around films. This gives a lot of scope for crowd-pleasing parodying of movie clichés. Early on is a sequence of auditions for a film to be shot in the village – Ravi Anna’s rendition of a film climax complete with gunfire is to die for.

The play falters a bit in the post-interval session. The skit on ‘Baap Ki Beti’, while comical on its own, isn’t very relevant to the rest of the play and gets repetitive. We’ve already seen that Ravi Anna cracks us up when taking bullets and collapsing; having him do it again is like retelling the punch line of a joke. Ditto for the scenes in which the actors cup water in their hands and throw it on each other. Very amusing the first time but the novelty wears off when done once too often.

The last stretch of the play would also have had greater impact, I think, had it been shorter.

Miss Meena is tagged as "A Play In English and a Smattering of Other Languages". Perhaps someone who knows all the languages in the play – English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada – will get more out of it than I did. I felt a bit left out when the language shifted entirely to Tamil – there is more than a mere smattering, really. The intent behind making Miss Meena multilingual puzzles me. In the case of a play like Dreams of Taleem, the rationale could be to make conversations realistic, that’s the way people speak in urban Mumbai. The same logic does not hold for Miss Meena. The natives of the village of Pichampuram are surely not speaking a mix of English, Hindi, Tamil and Kannada?

But let me not harp on minor nitpicks, they do not take away from the fun quotient of Miss Meena. Why just the audience, the cast seemed to be having a great time on stage too. It’s a pity that Ranga Shankara wasn’t half-full today, I hope the crowds flock in for the remaining shows. In fact I’m itching to watch it another time just to find out one thing -  in her first scene, how in heaven’s name did Miss Meena apparate onto stage?

[PS: If you know the names of the actors, do leave a comment about it.]

The play was based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock musical, a sort of cross between Toy Story and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (Starlight Express,1984, predates both). Starlight Express is the quintessential underdog tale set in the world of toy trains: Rusty, the steam train, is ridiculed for being not fast enough by the "villains" – Greaseball, the posturing diesel locomotive and Electra, the slick new electric train. Starlight Express is the midnight train, a metaphor for God, that the other trains trust and look up to (while some question its existence). The play culminates in a high-energy, beautifully orchestrated race between the trains.

The lyrics and dialogues, not to mention the choice of character names, are remarkable for their wordplay. The dining car is a lady called Dinah, Electra’s armaments truck is called Krupp. The "lady" coaches notice Rusty as he "whistles" as them. The Smoking Car is Ashley, and her lament is:

I’ve tried to kick the habit but my inside’s used to tar
I know if I don’t give up I might choke or have a stroke
That scares me, and when I’m scared, boy I need a smoke.

The USP of Starlight Express was that it was performed entirely on roller-skates. The cast moved about and raced and danced on them. My most striking recollection is of a meandering track extending from the stage, built across the seating area. We wouldn’t just watch the cast in front of us but all about us; the race happened on the track cutting through the audience.

The songs were beautiful and were retained from the original. The singers, too, were all from school. YouTube links to a couple of the originals: Starlight Express, the title song in which Rusty calls upon the magical locomotive for help, and the very catchy number A Lotta Locomotion.

Rehearsals had happened for several months before the play was staged, with special focus on training for roller-skating. (Students of the Xth and XIIth classes, in deference to the Boards, were forbidden from participating)

The play was performed for three days at the Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi, in August 1992 (more on the DPS RK Puram website). It ran to packed houses and received rave press reviews. I wish I could link to the reviews but none of the newspaper archives go back to 1992. There used to be a monthly video news magazine called Newstrack in that pre-24x7News era. They had featured this play with interviews of the cast/crew and "Making Of" insights. (I looked for the video online – other than this page no luck there either.)

The finesse with which my schoolmates performed this play far surpasses many professional productions I see today. DPS RKP’s Starlight Express of 1992, with its energy and colours and non-stop action, was a stunner in every sense.

Brooms sweep the floor in chorus, paper bags rustle, fingers snap and trashcan lids clang in this stunning off-Broadway comic-musical performance. Audaciously inventive, Stomp uses the oddest instruments to create percussion – from water-laden washbasins slung around performers’ necks to stuff pulled out of a garbage bag.

The two hour show runs without intermission. It is split into segments, thoughtfully planned so that quieter portions give respite after high-decibel ones. (It can get extremely loud!)

Stories within Stomp build up with humor and unpredictability. When a pipe pokes its way onto stage, we share the performer’s perplexity as he makes unsuccessful attempts to create music out of it. Until the rest of the gang walks in and relieves him (and us) of the suspense.

Stomp also takes a tongue-in-cheek look at group dynamics. Each performer has a strong personality (and it is to the show’s credit that we sense this clearly without a shred of dialogue). The lady who does wonders with the matchbox has a ‘See I can do this, can you?’ look about her, the guy who leads the clapping seldom shows emotion, the tallest is super-energetic and the little one bored and suspicious and (supposedly) not very musical.

Drama ensues when dissimilar people interact, collaborate or clash. There is a recurring pattern of individual versus collective accomplishments – many segments start with one person on stage and evolve as more join in: that is when stray sounds begin to sound like music. There is also an amusing game of one-upmanship going on. In the funniest sequence of the show, the rest of the group tease the “unmusical” one, using newspapers. (Except that the newspaper isn’t just newspaper. It is a monster one moment, a superhero’s cape or a hairbrush the next.)

Horizontal and vertical space merge seamlessly on stage, as performers move, swing and clamber up&down ladders with amazing speed and synchronization.

Stomp is a jolt to the senses. It leaves you awed by the power of music and the talent of its cast, but more than anything else it stretches your idea of possibilities. It wakes up in you a keener awareness of beauty in ordinary sounds and sights, which stays long after the show is over.

Notes:

[1] I watched Stomp at the Orpheum Theater New York on Apr 28th 2010. According to Stomp’s official site, the performers rotate and the show gives them room to express their individuality, so two shows may not be identical.

[2] Have you heard the Hindi song ‘Sunne wale sun lete hain kan-kan mein sangeet’ (approximate translation: for one with the ear for it, music is everywhere)  from the film Saaz (which means Melody/Harmony)?  Stomp reminded me of this song’s lines several times. (I wanted to embed/link its video but cannot find it online. Not a very popular song, alas. It’s an interesting composition by Zakir Hussain, written by Javed Akhtar.)

Since leaving school, this was my first experience of watching a performance by school children. At the venue, waiting outside were excited children and their equally excited parents; we seemed to be the only two solo adults who had lost our way into a parallel universe.

I was carrying my laptop and was anxious that it might not be allowed entry – but there was no scrutiny of the items being taken inside. Another departure from the norms we have got used to at public places.

So began the proceedings with a small “making of the play” video. A well-shot piece that created a favourable impression of things to come. The “Chief Cheer Leader” shown in the video, aka The Principal of the school then made way to the stage. He was nothing like the Principals I have been used to in my schooldays – he looked fit, wore dark shades and had a sense of humour. I wonder if that’s what Principals are like nowadays, or was this an exception?

After a short introductory speech, the curtains rose.

The play faithfully  follows the plot of the 1989 Disney adaptation. The sets were pretty nicely done, giving a convincing enough look of deep under the sea. Some of the acting was at par with professional theatre actors, notably Sebastian the Crab and Ursula the Sea Witch. The little one who played Flounders did a great job, too.

The singing was live, no lip-synching – hard to believe, it was that good! Sebastian and the leading lady Princess Ariel were outstanding.

A lot of effort has clearly gone into the preparation of the play. Despite being over two hours long and heavy with dialogue, not one member of the cast forgot their part.

The most endearing, infectious quality was the joie de vivre of its cast. Especially in the choreographed sequences Under The Sea and Shake Senora, the stage came alive when boys and girls of all ages ran onto the stage and danced with great gusto. They sure had a blast, and made us too a very happy audience.