Bear Grease is a heart-warming, inventive, and wholly Indigenous recreation of the musical Grease.
Well, it’s automatic, systematic, hydromatic– it’s Bear Grease lightning! The cast of Bear Grease electrified the audience with the Indigenous recreation of the 1972 musical Grease as well as the 1978 movie by the same name, at the National Arts Center.
The closing night, Oct. 14, marked the cast’s 120th show. Originally, Bear Grease was intended to be a single performance at the Edmonton Fringe Festival — but the world wanted more. Creators of the show, wife and husband duo Crystle Lightning and Henry “Cloud” Andrade (RedCloud) who make up LightningCloud productions, hope to take Bear Grease all the way to Broadway.
They are certainly on their way there. The standing ovation the cast received on the closing night brought tears and smiles to their faces.
At the start of the show, a short film clip explained the precedent for Bear Grease. The film invited the audience to imagine a world where the colonization of Turtle Island never occurred. If this had occurred, Indigenous peoples would thrive in the entertainment industry, instead of the less than 1 per cent they now occupy. Grease would have been Bear Grease.
Bear Grease is a heart-warming, inventive, and wholly Indigenous recreation of the musical Grease. Directed, written, and cast by an Indigenous team, the play consisted of ‘50s style dancing, breakdancing, hit song covers, ribbon skirts, drums, and lots of jokes.
RedCloud warns at the start of the show, “To all our white friends and allies out there, it’s okay to laugh. This is a safe space…but out there,” he gestures to outside the theatre “…we can’t help you.”
While staying true to some aspects of the original musical, some awesome changes are made too: Sandy wears a ribbon skirt, it’s the Pink Aunties (not the Pink Ladies), Rizzo is Rezzo, and “Summer Lovin’ ” turns into “Summer Snaggin’ ”. The style of several songs melt together the English versions with Indigenous culture.
Tammy Rae, who plays Rezzo, is from Whitefish Lake/Gift Lake Metis community. Rae is a recording artist and cultural educator who performed an astonishing cover of “Stand by Me” in Cree and English.
Her piercing voice carries the popular tune while adding to it the depth that the Cree language demands; Indigenous languages are not only methods of communication, like English.
Indigenous languages, like Cree, are complex knowledge systems that have been developed and protected by ancestors over the years. A great example of the meaning of words in Indigenous languages is Dominic HK Beaudry’s ‘Ojibwe word of the day’ page on X. The initiative to include Indigenous language education in schools is one that is taking place at the U of O.
Bryce Morin of Enoch Cree Nation hails from Treaty 6, Alberta, and is an actor, vocalist, cultural educator, traditional drummer/singer, and storyteller. Morin sang a cover of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” in a traditional style with drum. Seeing traditional drumming and singing on a national stage stunned the audience into adoring silence. Morin’s booming and fluctuating voice accompanied by the drum makes your heart drop to your feet–the audience held their breath as one.
In reaction to the standing ovation, RedCloud explained the cast’s heartfelt tears. “It means a lot to us to be able to stand here in 50s and 60s clothes. We set Bear Grease in an alternate reality where colonization never happened. Indigenous peoples’ reality in the 50s and 60s was very different. We faced The Sixties Scoop, residential schools, and boarding schools. So we would like to thank our Elders so we could have this opportunity.”
Overall, the heartfelt performances were a tribute to the talent of the nations of Treaty 6. Support Bear Grease so they can achieve their dream of performing on Broadway.
