I am writing a review on a professional production of GREASE. I intend to show examples of what I saw and to explain to you what the play was about and about how I found things as I entered the theatre.
As you entered the theatre your attention was grabbed straight away by the voice-over playing, the voice-over was the voice of Vince Fontaine. The voice-over was mainly played when a set changed occurred, Vince Fontaine used his voice in a DJ sort of way. At the beginning of the production they used neon lighting, and the stage that the actors acted upon was a proscenium arch.
When you walked into the theatre music was playing and then came the voice-over by Vince Fontaine. When we entered the theatre the set was not visable all you could see was a big sign that said GREASE. The genre of the production was a comedy romance, this was visable from the start of the production for example when Sandy saw Danny again they were so happy and then Danny acted as if he had never seen her before just because he was in front of his friends. The period the play was set in was the 1950’s this became evident because of the clothes the cast were wearing and also because of the words they used and because when the girls were at Marty’s sleepover there was Elvis posters all over the walls. The impact of scene 1 caught the audience by bringing the story of Grease to life for example all of the men dancing in towels this was very popular for the females. During the play the actors used the Removal of the fourth wall quite a few times for example when Danny was talking about sandy he spoke directly to the audience. The production I found wasn’t natural it was cartoon like. During set changes you had music or a voice-over playing. The production was pantomimic, the production was half-based on the characters and half-based on situations. The actual performance on the whole was melodramatic.
