Forty-eight hours to curtain, only two inhalers on hand and half the cast was talking about flu symptoms -- but oh, those summer nights.


The chorus was making tin-foil curlers for "Beauty School Dropout" and director Alex Urban was mobilizing tea and honey for the convalescents. The 15-year-old greasers were practicing pelvic thrusts backstage.


In the main building of Moscow State University Wednesday morning, 40 young actors were preparing for the opening night of "Grease," the musical that introduced a whole generation to the glamorous side of teenage delinquency.


"Grease," which became a classic film starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in 1978, was a hymn to the high-school hipsters of 1956: boys in slicked-back duck-tails and the girls who dated them. Songs such as "Hopelessly Devoted," "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" and "Greased Lightnin'" made the '50s look benignly rebellious and almost too fun.


The show, which will be staged onceFriday and twice Saturday, is a compilation of the musical's best numbers performed by about 40 high school students from Russia and America.


Most of the story line is preserved, so do not worry -- Rizzo still waffles on the birth control issue, and Keneike still steals those hubcaps, and ChaCha DeGregorio is still the best dancer at St. Bernadette's. Sandy finally dispenses with her irritating personality and lives happily ever after. Shoo bop sha wadda wadda yippidy boom de boom. Rydell High hasn't changed all that much.


Fortunately. For many young Americans, the show was an indispensible introduction to high school society, which seemed to consist mainly of unplanned pregnancy and auto repair.


"I've had the movie memorized since I was 5," said Summer Curtis, 17, who alternately plays sexpot Marty Marischino and pep-squad nightmare Patty Simcox. "I've wanted to do it forever."


The Russian actors said most of them had managed to negotiate adolescence without the assistance of "Grease," but that the experience was teaching them a lot.


"This is really interesting," said Varya Alitoskaya, 16, a student at the Slavic-Anglo-American School, who will appear in the chorus. "I didn't know that much about American high schools."


Zhanna, 15, was still holding out for her dream part: Rizzo, the fiercest, hippest of the Pink Ladies, a character she described as "a very deeply thinking character, a very sensitive person."


The Children's Theater Network -- Urban's chain of 10 regional children's theaters in California -- transplants shows overseas once a year. This is their second Moscow show, after "West Side Story" in 1991, and they will host the Russian cast for several shows in California next week. They have been in the business for a long time, and their performance in rehearsal had polish and energy that did not come out of your standard junior-high talent pool. These kids are professionals.


They certainly talk that way.


Eddie Alvarado, 14, said he hopes to build on his five years of children's theater for an eventual show business career -- but first, he must establish himself as a more versatile performer. "I think Alex thinks of me more as a dancer," he said about the show's director.


"I'm amazed by the amount that I have grown just under his direction." Jonathan Messer, 17, of Torrance, California, who has been appearing in stage productions for almost three years. "The difference between the parts I was getting then and the parts I am getting now is incredible." Messer will be one of this weekend's Teen Angels, in addition to performing two other roles. The Americans had rehearsed together regularly over the course of five months, and the Russians just joined the cast on Friday, which was a challenge for the local actors. As curtain time approached, there was some vestigial shyness among the performers.


"I can sing," said Dmitry Pimkin, 14, "but no one likes it when I do."





"Grease," a joint production by the Slavic-Anglo-American School "Marina" and California's Children's Theater Network, will be staged Friday at 6 P.M. and Saturday at noon and 6 P.M. in Moscow State University's Cultural Center, located in the Stalin building near Universitet metro station. Tel. 131-7812.