A REVIEW OF GREASE: THE NAIJA MIX

Seeing as I haven’t seen many onstage musicals (in or out of Naija), it was with some trepidation that I went to watch the first ever showing of Grease: Naija Mix (actually the second showing of the night) as staged by Krump Studios under The Speaking Feet Project. I had doubts believe me. I had been told the play gets better as it goes by someone who saw the first showing of the day, so I felt okay.

          

First of all, a little backdrop: yes, it’s about that Grease movie, the one with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and the flashy costumes; the leather jackets and still safe-to-wear school uniforms of yore (I take it people still use the word "yore"?) and you might wonder why do a play about that and on the surface it seems to be pretty much that, till you get pass the first few scenes and find the Naija surprise. Intertwined with a couple of shot footage; Grease: The Naija Mix manages to tell two parallel stories. The first sticks with the original storyline from the movie, even up to the setting of Malibu, California (Jabi doubling as Malibu in the footage, don’t laugh) where we meet Sandy and Danny played by professional dancers Elle Iwenjiora and Enobong Ekpenyong respectively, who can act, not too shabby (if you were wondering), while the second story (which I found amazing, perplexing and unexpected) introduces us to Shandy (Stephanie Uche Enebeli) and Donnie (Praise Nelson), that’s right the Naija version of Sandy and Danny set in Ogbomosho, Lagos (not even in the Malibu-like Jabi, Abuja)! You did see the words, “Naija Mix” in the title, right?

           

While Sandy and Danny represent all that we see and know of “love” from a Western cinematic perspective (love, jilted lovers, remorse, etc), Shondy and Donnie gave us the Nigerian version (the stereotype of unromantic men, the ready-made-men seeking women, etc). As Donnie tries to woo Shandy by curtailing the belief that Nigerian men can’t be romantic, he is surprised by the words of Shondy, “Na love I go chop?” a line that gets interpolated into the lyrics of “You’re the one that I want”. Of course in telling two Grease stories, the Naija version suffers slightly from having fewer scenes.

           

To separate the stories and for technical reasons (to give the performers the chance to change for the next scene), hosts Goldfish and Omonakee have their own humorous interaction with the audience about love. I have to say I actually enjoyed myself, my best musical performance being of “Grease Lightning” to one moment where Elle Iwenjiora as Sandy (performing an original song) temporarily breaks character when the audience gets involved yelling at her not to take Danny back. And here I thought it was hard to get a response from an Abuja crowd. It seems clearly musicals do a better job than musicians asking you to wave your hands in the air or whatever. Other standout performance includes Adeola Omotosho’s rendition of “Sandra Dee” (in some nice looking nightwear, I might add) to the ensemble performances of Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” to Timaya and Chuddy K’s “Molonogode” and “Gaga” respectively.

            

The staging of Grease: The Naija Mix has been a four year dream of director, choreographer and owner of Krump Studios, Jemima Angulu and to see it come true in such fashion, she must be proud of herself.

RATING

Like I said, I haven’t seen too many musicals on stage, this is probably the first one minus the school plays I’ve been in and the ones I had to sit through, but I enjoyed myself and the pluses (great dancing, decent singing, hilarious commentary) way outweigh the minuses (they did the best with the underfunded production they had). It gets a 7/10 rating from me.