GREASE: The long-run champ without a Tony

I'm just going on memory here, folks, but I just had a thought I don't think I've seen written down before, and I figured I should jot it down.

If memory serves, this is the list of Broadway's longest running musicals since OKLAHOMA!, listing the ones that replaced the current champion as the new champion:

MY FAIR LADY
HELLO, DOLLY!
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
GREASE
A CHORUS LINE
CATS
LES MISERABLES
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

That's right, I think. So far, so good?

First of all, notice that that gives us one from the 50s, two from the 60s, two from the 70s and three from the 80s. Interesting.

Notice as well that the three 80s shows came to New York from London, whereas the earlier shows were American originals (originating from out-of-town tryouts, Chicago and off-Broadway).

Only one show on this list (A CHORUS LINE) won the Pulitzer Prize.

But all of them, except for one, won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The odd man out is GREASE.

In 1972, it lost to TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (a follow-up to HAIR, and ACL's precursor at the New York Shakespeare Festival). And GREASE isn't even considered to be the show that "got defeated so that TWO GENTLEMEN could win"--that dubious wag honor usually goes to FOLLIES.

I just thought this was interesting, that's all. How did the first Broadway production of GREASE run so long, without instant acclaim as either a critical hit or an obvious crowd-pleaser? Similarity to HAPPY DAYS can't be the only answer. Was it because it was so rooted in rock and roll popular culture?

And where else was I going to write this stuff down? My diary?

They used hand-held microphones and used phrases like "**** wagon." What we know of the show nowadays is completely sanitized of any grit it once had.

It was the West Side Story vs The Music Man scenario played out in the 1970s. Everyone knew West Side Story should have won, yet they wouldn't vote for it.

---

It does seem like each successive incarnation of GREASE is less gritty and more prettified than the one before it. The first mounting of the show in Chicago had to be "cleaned up" and de-Chicagofied before the Broadway production opened, and then the movie, the Rosie revival and the reality-show revival have been increasingly squeaky-clean, I guess.

You may have something about the low running costs. And of course a lot of TV and film talent came out of the show, starting with Adrienne Barbeau going into "Maude." But none of them were stars when they were cast, of course.

What made the original Grease so successful was it's nostaligic look back through cynical eyes - it came at a time when our culture wasn't immersed in nostalgia.

The original concept of Grease grew from a party in the late 1960s where the composers got the idea by reminiscing of high school days in late 1950's Chicago. They were playing 1950's records and discussing the percieved innocence of the time vs the reality of the how much the world had changed in less than a decade.

Remember that in the 10+ years that passed between 1959 (when Grease takes place) and 1970 (when the first production was mounted) our country had witnessed the death of JFK, had fallen into a never-ending brutal war, was under the heavy threat of nuclear war, and been introduced to the free-love hippie generation. It was a far cry from the "bygone days."

What the original script of Grease did was take memories that many held of "better times" and reminded people that things aren't as innocent as we may recall them.

The original story wasn't about Danny and Sandy... it was about teenagers and the desperate measures they took to "fit in" or "find themselves." It's finale was EXTREMELY ironic a that time in that it made a statement on how society "championed conformity." But they did so with a twist - instead of the bad girl turning good, the good girl turned bad. Also along that note, the agressiveness they gave Sandy in "taking control" played into the growing woman's sexual liberation movement that was so popular at the time.

But I digress because this is turning into a thesis.

What began as a cynical romp, became a hit through word of mouth. It lasted years and years (much to the Broadway community's chagrin) because it rode a wave of nostalgia that became ultra hot in the 1970's. The show itself was loathed by many in legit theatre at the time... mostly because it was considered a vulgar, low-class show written by no-name upstarts from a small Chicago theatre troop. Theatre snobs sneered at it... and still do... and most simply just didn't understand the brilliance of it's tongue in cheek cynicism set to rock-n-roll music.

After Grease was initially produced, movies and tv shows stole the basic theme ultimately giving the Broadway show longer legs. It became a safe, fun bet for visitors to NYC or on tour. Fast forward to 1978 and the movie version, which was watered down to become simply a vehicle to feature John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, was released giving it even more notoriety.

Because the movie version catapulted "Grease" into immoratilty, future productions have catered to it rather than the original premise... that's because generation after generation know Grease by what they see in the movie - not the original. Thus past revivals, current productions and future productions have little to no choice but to revisit the Travoltaisms since that's what the mass audience expects.

Very few outisde of the "theatre world" understand what Grease was originally intended to be... a look at innocent times WITHOUT rose-colored glasses. Those that do clamour to see it in it's original form. I'd love to go back in time and see it as originally intended - an irreverent local production in a Chicago Trolley Barn.

Updated On: 5/24/12 at 04:08 PM

"But I should confess I'd have voted for THE MUSIC MAN over WSS, too."

Because you'd rather see a musical that has songs like

"Pick a little, talk a little, cheep, cheep, cheep" and some lispy kid singing Gary Indiana

than a musical that has song like

"When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong"

---

I remember the tv commercial:

Every night at the Royale Theatre, the 50s come to life!

We go together like....

---

Here is Will Panek's BWW review of "The Original Grease," that played here in Chicago in the summer of 2011. While it was not really a scrupulous recreation of the Kingston Mines production, it certainly wasn't what people think of today, by a long shot. But it doesn't reveal why the show ran for a decade in New York in the 70s, either. Such vastly different productions.

https://chicago.broadwayworld.com/article/The-Original-Grease-No-Longer-the-Danny-Sandy-Show-20010101

Now here is a horrifying television commercial for the Broadway production of GREASE in 1978 that leads me to think that part of the huge appeal of the show was that it was one of the first to be directly sold specifically to a tourist audience with midwestern tastes.
GREASE COMMERCIAL

Does anyone recognize the actor in that commercial? He was in a TV series or something in later years.

The "appeal to nostalgia" is undeniable there. But where would that commercial have run? Did tourists watch TV while they were in town? Or would the ad have played in big cities elsewhere?

(I know nowadays that hotels have special ad rolls that run on your TV whenever you turn it on. It's a common practice in Vegas and here in Palm Springs. But I don't think hotels in New York had that feature back then.)

He looks really familiar to me too, but he kind of looks like the love child of Jeff Conaway and Marilu Henner.

Aw, c'mon Joe, you know Midwesterners like to speak in verse and shake hands with people in them fancy Broadway productions!

I don't see how the original productions sex and language is something that ties in with what New Yorkers think are stereotypical Midwestern tastes, though.