Although spaced a decade apart and both hopelessly outdated, 1978's movie version of "Grease" and 1987's "Dirty Dancing" still exert an irresistible pull. It's hard to pinpoint the source of the attraction — certainly, Patrick Swayze and John Travolta were cute, but the films really succeeded on the strength of their characters: While behaving badly and acting like punk teenagers, they still exuded a powerful charisma that made thousands of teens want to get up and dance.
   That vital blend of attitude and charm was sadly lacking in last week's performance of Grease at the Academy of Music. The cast may have felt compromised by the substitution of its Danny Zuko for understudy Mark Raumaker, but the entire performance felt both coarsely performed and outdated.
    While the actors onstage played their guts out on the energy level, nailing that hand jive and cheesy dance moves, the main characters felt like carbon-copies of the 1978 film, but with a much less finely tuned realization of what makes Danny and his gang "cool" or Rizzo and her girls strut. As a result, the beloved tunes and familiar choreography felt as out-of-date as Danny's ex-girlfriends.
    A few exceptional actors buoyed the energy of the musical with strong performances, among them the boy-crazy Marty (Kelly Felthous), the squeaking Frenchy (Kate Morgan Chadwick) and Emily Padgett as the goody-two-shoes-turned-cool Sandra Dee. Yet while these performances felt like excellent cameos, the two characters with whom i felt most strongly connected were peripheral — Miss Lynch (Roxie Lucas), and Teen Angel — "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks himself. Neither of these two have roles longer than 15 minutes, yet they exude such stage presence that they swallow up the teenagers about whom the musical is ostensibly about. And when a cheesy, aging pop star and a grumpy schoolmistress can steal the show from good-looking, fast-talking, jiving teenagers, you know there's something missing. Maybe it's just outdated, but for the first time, I found myself less than "hopelessly devoted."