It’s easy to forget that Bye Bye Birdie is more than a commentary on 1950’s rock and roll culture, manifested in Conrad Birdie and his adoring throng of adolescent females. It is, at heart, a lovely, if out of place, romance. The central characters are Albert Peterson and Rosie Alvarez, originated on Broadway by Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera. Albert is a music industry executive and Rosie his secretary girlfriend, and a huge portion of the musical is devoted to their fumbling relationship. This is both good and bad. In this case, Lyric Stage was able to hire the immensely talented and likable Steve Barcus and Catherine Carpenter Cox to play the roles, but, by its very nature, the production is still the most entertaining and explosive when dealing with the rock star Birdie and his hilariously devoted fans.
Lyric Stage, performing at the Irving Arts Center, has somehow managed to develop an extremely devoted fan base in the city—the Saturday showing of Bye Bye Birdie was completely packed in the 700 plus theater. The audience was overwhelmingly older, and the production values of the performance—wonderful set pieces and full orchestration—suggest that a good number of these audience members are patrons. Whatever is going on at Lyric Stage, it’s working, because the cast that director Cheryl Denson managed to round up is overwhelmingly talented. In addition to wonderful performances by Barcus and Cox, Mary McElree as Kim and Mike Gallagher as her father were wonderfully retro, and Charlotte Franklin as Albert’s dramatic mother was hilarious. The real stand-out, however, was Mackenzie Orr, a high school student from Coppell, who played Kim’s boyfriend. He brought a refreshing sincerity to his role. Amongst a throng of hammy musical theater acting, Orr seemed the most like a real person.
He had competition with Cox, though, whose Rosie was fierce and complex, despite her rather unchanging arc. Nevertheless, these two characters, Hugo and Rosie, are repeatedly linked throughout the play—Rosie is having a hard time getting Albert to pay attention to her, let alone leave the music industry and run away with her to live a simpler life of teaching English; and Hugo is distraught that his girlfriend Kim has been chosen to receive Conrad Birdie’s “one last kiss” before he goes away to war. These parallel plotlines lead to the darkest and most interesting scenes in the play: Hugo getting drunk to drown his sorrows, and Rosie engaging in a bizarre and hilarious orgy (it’s undeniable) with the members of the town’s men’s club.
The darker elements of the show—fear of teenage promiscuity in “Kids,” racism in “Spanish Rose,” media lies in “A Healthy, Normal American Boy,” and the obsessive desire for fame in “Hymn for a Sunday Evening” (whose lyrics are mostly “Ed Sullivan, Ed Sullivan”)—are deceptively persistent, and surprisingly relevant. Whereas Conrad Birdie was clearly based on Elvis Presley, there are still several adolescent musical acts out there (Bieber, Cyrus, Jonas, etc.), whose media image is based simultaneously on wholesomeness and orgy-inducing fandom. The “o” word is used again purposefully—the fear of one between Birdie and his frenzied fans is pervasive in the show. I’m glad the show goes there—it adds texture and complexity to an otherwise simple plot, and it gives the play’s parents something concrete to play in a teen-dominated show. Bye Bye Birdie was a huge hit when it came to Broadway in 1960, for its ability to combine searing social commentary and exhilarating fun. It still works. It’s still enjoyable, and Lyric Stage put on a flawless production.
So what to do with the central and often-forgotten plot of Albert and Rosie? When Dick Van Dyke filmed the movie, he was reportedly very upset that all of the screen time was being re-routed to Ann-Margaret, who played Kim. But it’s easy to see why that choice was made—the images that stick out from Bye Bye Birdie all have to do with the hysteria surrounding a pop star—in one memorable dance sequence, the whole town faints as Birdie thrusts his hips—and the dangers of growing up. Albert and Rosie, unfortunately, seem strangely out of place by the end. And yet the end is overwhelmingly devoted to them, who have decided to run away to Iowa to teach junior high, away from the throngs of shrieking teens and into a classroom— with bored ones.
Photo: Courtesy of Lyric Stage
