Review: GREASE at Diamond Head Theatre

Leave 2025 behind, put your gladrags on, and lace up your saddle shoes, because Grease has arrived at Diamond Head Theatre, and tonight everybody's gonna party like it’s 1959!

Winner of the Audience Choice poll for the 2024-2025 season, Grease is a certified crowd-pleaser, and the energetic cast at DHT brings it to life with aplomb. Sandwiched between the meatier fare of Master Class and Man of La Mancha, Grease offers a respite and invites the audience to relive the poodle-skirted fluff and teenage raunch of 1950s America. Even before the show starts, the antics of eternal cheerleader Patty (a delightfully bubbly Cate Labas), nerd-turned-tycoon Eugene (Pono Lundell), and the no-nonsense Miss Lynch (Brianna Johnston) set the mood and deliver the pre-show announcements in a clever and engaging way. As the curtain rises, we are greeted by the entire band on an elevated platform upstage and the entire cast giving it their all with the Barry Gibb/Frankie Valli "Grease" theme song, which had been added to the movie in 1978 and made its way back to the stage in the 2007 Broadway revival.

The choreography by Dwayne Sakaguchi in this number and throughout the show is markedly more modern than traditional productions of Grease, echoing Arlene Phillips’s style in the 2022 West End revival. The cast at DHT is chock full of strong dancers and movers, and they tackle Mr. Sakaguchi’s choreography with an energy that made my sciatica flare up just by watching it! The all-skate finale and the spotlight dance between Cha-Cha DiGregorio (Emi Sampson) and Kenicke (Jantzen Shinmoto) were standout numbers, but it was “Greased Lightning” that really amped up the momentum of the show. Leading man Cameron Scot as Danny Zuko is a true triple threat, more than holding his own alongside his pack of greasers spinning and leaping across the stage, and his rendition of “Sandy” at the drive-in was both powerful and impressive.

This was also a very strong cast vocally: in particular, Jody Bill as Rizzo delivered a formidable rendition of “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” Jeff Andrews and his massive pompadour commanded the stage in “Beauty School Dropout”, Alexandria Zinov as Marty flounced and pouted through an endearing “Freddy My Love”, and Chad Navarro-Cortes as Doody sang the hell out of “Those Magic Changes”, oozing charm and hitting stratospheric notes that would make Frankie Valli himself proud. But it was the duet of “Mooning” between Jan (Lainey Hicks) and Roger (Kiakahi Kekoa) that really took the cake for me—director Michael Ng got the best out of these talented performers in this number, and their puppy love chemistry was off the charts.

To post a comment, you must register and login.