They trashed my show!
If reviews could kill, Bye Bye Birdie would be posting a closing notice. Fortunately, the power of the NY Times reviewer to make or break a production is diminished in this era when word of mouth (and tweet of smart phone) can have a bigger impact on theatrical fortunes than Brantley rants or Teachout clouts. I hope there are enough people who felt about the revival as I did.
For Ben Brantley, the just-opened “Birdie” is a flop that will cause theatergoers to “feel an empathetic urge to rush home and bury their heads in their pillows.” For Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal, “the Roundabout’s revival of “Bye Bye Birdie” is the worst-sung musical I’ve ever seen on Broadway…. I only wish it had been overdubbed.”
For me (and I should add, for CultureSpouse, attending his first “Birdie”), it was electric and energizing—a high-spirited, brightly entertaining and (with the exception of the universally panned Bill Irwin) well acted, winsomely sung Broadway romp. John Stamos‘ singing, on the night I attended (but apparently not on the night when Terry was there), hit all the right musical and comical notes. His deft dancing, to my surprise and delight, did not make me experience wistful longing for the inimitable Dick Van Dyke, who I thought might have owned the role of the manager for the play’s Elvis clone, Conrad Birdie.
Not one but two musicals now revived for the first time on Broadway were watershed cultural events for born-and-bred New Yorkers of a certain age (mine) in our early theater-going days—“Hair” (which I have yet to see in its current incarnation) and the earlier “Bye Bye Birdie,” which arrived for me at the perfect preteen moment. To this impressionable (but even then, Broadway-savvy) young critic, this light-hearted look at youthful and adult relationships and misunderstandings was the height of musical-theater perfection.
I didn’t take it seriously as a celebration of teenage enthusiasms: I understood it, even then, for what it was—an affectionate, whimsical send-up of what later came to be known as the “generation gap.” We and our parents (and their parents) were being lightly made fun of, but we were in on the joke. I bought the album. I soon knew (and sang) every word. My best friend Hazel and I were inspired to create our own musical send-ups between homework assignments—the precursors, of course, to the beloved CultureGrrl Singing Podcasts.
Not wanting to bump into the Great Wall of Price Resistance (as has happened with “Hair”), I grabbed two lower-priced tickets for a late preview of “Birdie.” I arrived at my side-orchestra seat with trepidation, knowing there was a good chance that the jaded, sophisticated CultureGrrl, revisiting a touchstone of her youth, would experience a wave of “what could I have been thinking?” revulsion.
Instead, I found myself nodding in agreement with another woman of my ripe vintage, whom I overheard at intermission exclaiming, “I’m in heaven!” “Birdie,” for us, still worked. I still knew all the words to the songs and anticipated most of the punch lines. And I still loved it. Although they didn’t slavishly reproduce the original staging, they were true to the spirit of it.
I did long sometimes for Chita Rivera—both her singing and, especially, her dancing, in the role of the put-upon secretary and girlfriend of Birdie’s manager. Still, Gina Gershon made a fine (although occasionally vocally challenged) night of it. Gerard Funk as Birdie was appropriately feral. When I heard him (pre-tonsillitis), he was firm of singing voice and wiggly of body. Acting’s not his strong suit, but his manager (Stamos) mostly muzzles him anyway. He easily met the sexual-charisma requirements of his three big numbers.
The only “what were they thinking?” clunker was Bill Irwin‘s barking, authoritarian take on the clueless father of the Birdie groupie (a star-is-born turn by Allie Trimm) who was chosen to receive the teen idol’s last kiss before his army gig. Where was Paul Lynde when we really needed him—especially in the father’s big number, “Kids” (“I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today”)? Lynde had perfected a very campy, hilarious take on the baffled, bemused but kind-hearted and loving dad. You wanted to hug him, not (as with Irwin) throttle him.
At least we’ve still got Bloomberg‘s John Simon, who I’ll bet saw (and loved) the original. He welcomed the new “Birdie” as “a show both for the kid with you and the kid within
you.” That gets it about right.
But don’t worry, Ben: Back in 1960 when the original “Birdie” premiered, Brooks Atkinson of the Times didn’t get it either.
UPDATED: I guess the theater audiences DID get it: Roundabout has announced a new block of tickets, through April.