The Broadway Ferret

Image from www.roundabouttheatre.org

Rating: 4 out of 5 masks

A teen idol musical set in the 60s gets its first revival.

Bye Bye Birdie tells the story of the ultimate teen idol, Conrad Birdie, being drafted to the Vietnam War but not before one final goodbye to his fans and the lucky girl who gets to give him his last kiss.  That last part was planned by his agent and songwriter Albert Peterson and his secretary/girlfriend Rose Alvarez.

I was distracted throughout the show by the downstage track that went between stage left and right.  I understand that in this age of technology there is no or at least little need for stagehands to move scenery and/or large stage props, but the fact that I could actually see the track almost distracted me from the entire show.  The only theory I could come up to explain its visibility is that it seems to be the main track.  I hope they find some way to make it look like the rest of the stage before it opens.

I liked the bright bold colors used in the sets.  The McAfee’s living room and kitchen set looked very realistic, almost like a time warp.  I liked how they had actual sets for scenes that took place at the train station and the school playground.

I thought that the kids were the best part of the show, especially Allie Trimm who played Kim McAfee, the girl that got picked to kiss Conrad.  I was excited to see Trimm, who was in the musical 13 as Patrice.  The musical number “One Boy” was my favorite number in the entire show because the girls sounded so perfect it almost didn’t seem real.  I believed the teen girls who went crazy for their teen idol, from screaming in his presence to serenading him.  “The Telephone Hour”, featuring all of the kids was one of my favorite performance numbers.  You could tell that a great deal of practice that went into coordinating something that could turn out disastrous if not done right.

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I thought Bill Irwin as Kim’s dad was the best part of the show in terms of humor.  He was really taking his role as far as he could without making it stereotypical.  Almost everytime he was onstage, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing so hard.  I’m going to make an early prediction that he’ll get a Tony nomination for this part.

I thought that John Stamos and Gina Gershon were ok.  It didn’t occur to me until the end of the show that they were sort of the main characters/storyline, which was a little confusing since the show is called Bye Bye Birdie.

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I thought Nolan Gerard Funk was sort of ok as Conrad Birdie.  He was certainly convincing when performing in front of the crowd of teenagers.  Personally I think that if the producers were going to cast the role of a teen idol, they would go for a modern teen idol such as Zac Efron.  It would certainly give kids a reason to see the show, other than at their respective schools.

I was bothered by the end of the show.  I won’t give anything away, but there were two main plot points that weren’t wrapped up.  Also, as I said before, the fact that the Conrad Birdie storyline was secondary to the Albert Peterson/Rose Alvarez storyline almost didn’t make sense.

I would recommend this show to anyone who’s a fan of the show in general, if only to relive the musical numbers.  It would be a perfect show for families as the parents get to remember what it was like to be teenagers and their kids will get to connect with their parents when it comes to worshipping teen idols.

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes w/intermission