Grease, with Belinda Carlisle and Barry Williams
from the L.A. Weekly, June 3, 1983, a long time ago

I was a college student once, back in the mid-'70s. Lou Reed and David Bowie were very popular among my set, but we weren't beyond "having a little fun" at their expense, imagining for laughs some not-too-distant time when Lou would host his own comedy-variety TV show. (College students don't have much else better to do.) Bowie would come on as a guest star, and they'd do "skits" together -- you know, comedy stuff -- and David would sing his latest single and maybe something like "Moonage Daydream" for old time's sake. At the end of the show, Lou would bid studio and television audience adieu, saying, "And just remember: Despite all the complication, you can just dance to that rock & roll station ... GOODNIGHT EVERY BODY!" And he'd blow America a great big kiss, the Lou Reed Orchestra and Chorus would strike up a jazzy "Sister Ray," and that'd be it 'til next week.

    Like I said, this was just a sort of futurist humorizing, predicated on the ironic clash of rock (pure, true, powerful) and "entertainment" (compromised, phony, ineffectual), and yet in a way it seemed perfectly reasonable, not at all unlikely. One generation's revolution, after all, is the next's show business. And one day not so many years after this vision was visited upon us, I turned on the TV and there, on The Dinah Show , sitting next to Dinah Shore and I forget whom else, was the Thin White Duke himself -- David Bowie -- looking quite at home and chatting amiably about one thing and another. It was coming true, even sooner than we'd expected! David and Dinah -- it was too ... well, it was ... it was okay . It didn't hurt at all. David sang "Stay," and he was just great and probably seen by even more people than when he played Midnight Special. And then, faster than one could say "Rebel Rebel," he was on the show again, this time with Iggy in tow -- Iggy, who, one might well note, plays golf just like fellow great entertainer Bob Hope. And the next thing you knew, there was Patti Smith, practically co-hosting The Mike Douglas Show. And it was all okay. The world went right on spinning.
    Similarly, I find nothing intrinsically offensive in Go-Go's frontperson Belinda Carlisle assuming a starring role in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera's current revival of the inexplicably long-running Broadway smasheroo Grease. I'll admit that on first notice of this casting coup I smote my brow and was heard to exclaim aloud, "Oh no!" but it was more of "Don't that beat all" sort of "Oh no" than a "How could she do this to rock & roll" sort of "Oh no." Though the Go-Go's were formed in an environment (Canterbury/Masque punk axis) where "selling out" (and this would've qualified) was deemed a cardinal sin, any selling out that band's done was done long ago. They're certified commercial chartbusters now, slick poster cuties emulated by millions, drooled over by millions more -- first-water gossip fodder with high name-recognition. Which is fine. More power to them. You can't betray rock & roll anyway; an artist only ever betrays his or herself, and just when that might be only they are equipped to say. If Belinda wants to play ingenue for the Long Beach theater crowd, well, why not? GO FOR IT.

I went for it, all the way down to where the Queen Mary shines brightly upon the water, to row 11 seat 17 of the Terrace Theater. Full house, mostly got up very nicely. More than a few tuxedos and a lot of women wrapped in things feathery, flowery or furry. Onstage, a lectern, a table and a painted curtain hung with a painted sign: "Welcome Back, Rydell Class of '59." And then ... house lights down, stage lights up -- we were off.
    Grease, this particular production aside, is one big turkey of a play, a real rank piece of dramaturgy. It's a long series of digressions from a poor excuse for a plot, full of confusing group activity, crotch humor and unmemorable exhumations of '50s rock styles framing lyrics that broadly and obviously lampoon a variety of adolescent cultural minutiae. And because many of the players signify their '50s semi-juvey teenness by assuming a Brooklynate nasality, the thing plays not unlike a two-hour rendition of "Officer Krupke."
    The guys 'n' gals of the cast seemed honestly to "give it their all," ineffective as that was under the circumstances. Guest star Casey "America's Top Ten" Kasem's "wild and crazy guy" turn as (appropriately) a disc jockey was the evening's Big Fun. Casey seemed so gosh darn happy to be there that you just had to love him. Barry Williams, late of The Brady Bunch, played the lowbrow love interest with gusto and verve; he fell apart on the "get-down" songs, but handled his ballads honorably.
    As for Belinda: She remembered all her lines, got each in the right expressive ballpark (happy, sad, worried, excited), and did not in any way interfere with one's understanding of the action. She only had a few songs to sing, and she sang them fine. It was an inauspicious debut, but she got through it all right. And who knows how far she might progress by run's end? As anyone who witnessed the Go-Go's flailing away in their early days can attest, practice makes, if not quite perfect, at least for improvement.

A few hours before Ms. We Got the Beat and the former Greg Brady found true eternal love for ever and ever, I watched Belinda's bandmate Jane "Drano" Weidlin join glam-rockers Sparks on Solid Gold for a lip-synching of "Cool Places," a marginally catchy piece of new wave disco on which she guest vocalizes. And I just wanted to say that, Jane, I think you sing every bit as well as (maybe even better than) Mike Marshall's girlfriend, and I like your new haircut (a fluffy Cleopatra) way more than Belinda's Grease 'do, which flatters her not at all and which she'd do well to lose the minute the last curtain rings down.

copyright © 1983 & 2006 by me Robert Lloyd

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