`Grease’ actors shine

Tom Logan created Legacy Community Productions to give young actors a chance to perform theater and to give schools an opportunity to raise money for their arts programs.

His first effort, “Grease,” gives the area’s most talented young actors a chance to shine. The overall production, however, is barely a step above the two high school performances Logan has directed previously.

“Grease” is a fun, fluffy show set in Rydell High School in the 1950s days of bobby socks, leather jackets, and a brand-new kind of music called rock ‘n’ roll. The students gather in gangs, posing and posturing for each other in a variation of the ancient mating dance.

Case Chandler plays Danny, leader of the T-Birds, a gang of greasers who talk tougher than they act. Jason Lew, Ben Layman, Brandon Jones, and A.J. Deraspe are the guys who hang with him. These young men create such vibrant, realistic characters that watching them is like eavesdropping in a high school parking lot. Unlike most amateur actors, they never fall out of character and their tight, cohesive performances are unmatched by the rest of the cast.

Rizzo leads the Pink Ladies, played by Shauna Stratton, Tara Studley and Jessica Ormsby, the tough-talking girls of Rydell. Heather Astbury looks too tall, too thin, too much like a reed to exude so much anger and belt out so much angst in a song, but her looks are deceiving. Although she and the Pink Ladies never bond the way the T-Birds do, Astbury is a powerful presence on any stage.

Kimberly Horn plays Sandy, Danny’s good-girl love interest. Horn perfectly captures the character’s awakening sexuality and the changing mores of the times. She also has a lilting soprano that sings a sweet love song, but it fails her when she has to rock out on the classic “Fever.”

Ironically, the efforts of all this young talent are eclipsed by the middle-aged Pam Martin who plays Rydell’s overbearing principal, Miss Lynch. She stops the show and brings down the house with an Elvis impression fine enough for Las Vegas.

Kelly Holyoke’s imaginative choreography adds strength to the production, but the three-piece combo led by Richard Pasvogel does not rock or roll enough to do justice to the score. Pat Button’s costumes are colorful and fun, but Logan should have spent more money on set construction.

While Logan’s efforts are worth supporting, he needs to find or train a technical crew as talented and experienced as his cast. If Logan is truly to fulfill his fledgling company’s mission, he must soar above the best of the area’s high school productions. He comes close, but misses the bar this time.

“Grease” will be performed at 8 p.m. today and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, at John Bapst High School, Bangor. For ticket information, call 942-6224.