Review: Bear Grease a lively take on a musical classic

Bear Grease is many things, but it’s not simply an Indigenous take on the musical Grease.

It aims much higher, and also at times lower, than that. Sure, you’ll get the classic hits like Summer Nights tweaked slightly for the audience (“Summer snagging”) and more than a few mentions of the pow-wow filling in for the school dance. You might catch the inside references to “Bepsi” and “Indian tacos” or you might not, though it’s not hard to figure them out. You may also not notice that every song played before the performance is of Elvis songs being sung by the Black performers originally associated with them before Presley took them to a mainstream audience.

A sly nod, there, though Bear Grease doesn’t really go there, at least for long. It’s just a gentle poke at the audience, maybe a way to set up the idea of Indigenous youth on the rez filling in the spots where white kids from late ‘50s California played out their teenage angst. With hip-hop and ribbon dresses seeping into the action, of course.

That’s what happens when you go with the original conceit of the piece, that we’re looking at an alternative universe where Columbus was thwarted in 1492. “You ever wonder what the world would have been like if we hadn’t killed all those innocent explorers in 1492,” muses one cast member at one point. “I think we should have invited them over for dinner,” responds another.

While colonizers failed to bring war and destruction to the continent, pop culture somehow developed along roughly the same lines, but with an Indigenous twist. This means we hear gorgeous versions of classic R&B staples like Twilight Time (with Bryce Morin as Danny taking the lead) and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (a wistful Melody McArthur as Sandy) alongside some truly great breakdancing from Raven Bright (Roger) and Justin Giehm (Sonny Boy).

Bear Grease isn’t aimed entirely at the Indigenous audience, but at times it’s appreciated on a more profound level there. Like when Tammy Rae (as Rezzo) steps forward to the familiar bass throb of Stand By Me and proceeds to sing it almost entirely in Cree, to whoops and cheers of joy from the audience that nearly overtook the moment.

Does it all fit? Of course it does, just as Morin’s astonishing mashup of pow-wow drumming with a ‘50s classic rocker works perfectly. It’s the kind of stuff that rewires your brain a little, nudging you to see and hear connections, whether cultural or musical. Mostly it’s just fun, wherever the laughs or moments of true beauty take it. It’s clever, raunchy, whimsical, self-deprecating and definitely entertaining.

It still has some of the feel of the Fringe show from which it sprang, with a little extra multimedia padding at the beginning and in between to fill things out to a two-hour production. There’s some amusing behind-the-scenes mockumentary footage, an improvised rap by co-creator Henry Cloud Andrade, a few songs by the cast, and a sprinkling of fake ads.

It might not be the version of Grease that you’ve grown up with, but it definitely keeps the heart of the original throbbing in the beat of the pow-wow drums.

Where: MacLab Theatre at the Citadel Theatre, 9828 101A Ave.

When: Until Oct. 27

Tickets: $40 and up, available in advance from citadeltheatre.com