Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Tony Award winning Best Musical Bye Bye Birdie first hit the Broadway stage in 1960, and the show has been going strong in various formats ever since. The show became a movie musical in 1963, and if you attended a public high school it’s more likely than not that the show was produced as the ‘spring musical’. The original stars of the show were Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke, with Van Dyke reprising his role in the film (Rivera was replaced with Janet Leigh, an odd choice to play the show’s ‘Spanish Rose’). Now the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. has revived the show as part of its Broadway Center Stage series, so this may be the only chance you have to see this particular production (unless like their presentation of Monty Python’s Spamalot it transfers to Broadway).
The plot of Bye Bye Birdie seems fairly simple on its surface: a major teen heart-throb recording star in 1958 has just been drafted into the Army, and his agent is seeing this as the end of his business while Conrad Birdie serves his country for the next two years. But Albert Peterson comes up with a plan to go out with a bang — Birdie will sing a new song, ‘One Last Kiss’, and give that last kiss to one of his adoring fans (it should be noted this entire plan is actually concocted by Albert’s secretary/girlfriend Rosie Alvarez, who’s been hopelessly waiting for Albert to give up show biz and marry her). The name picked is Kim MacAfee, president of the Sweet Apple, Ohio branch of the Conrad Birdie Fan Club. The plan is to bring Birdie to Sweet Apple, have him perform the song live on The Ed Sullivan Show and kiss Kim. Simple enough, but many affairs of the heart threaten to derail the entire operation, from Kim’s jealous boyfriend Hugo, to an exasperated Rosie, to Albert’s overbearing mother Mae. And the Sweet Apple parents aren’t to thrilled of the ‘bad influence’ Birdie has brought into their children’s lives. Will Albert be able to pull it all together?
For a show that’s more than 60 years old set in an era of nostalgia, whose central character is modeled after Elvis Presley, one would think Bye Bye Birdie would be tiresomely dated at this point. Thankfully it stands the test of time and this Broadway Center Stage production is proof of that. It still feels modern even though it takes place in 1958. As with most of the BCC productions, this one is not what would be considered a fully staged production. There are no real sets, just set-pieces like furniture, lights and signage with a large video screen at the back of the stage that give us the ‘set changes’, while the entire 20-piece (or more) orchestra inhabits a large portion of the stage, occasionally becoming part of the show. Perhaps this approach is what makes the production feel so modern. It works extremely well. This means director Marc Bruni has a smaller space in which to move the actors around, utilizing the raised portions of the orchestra area as well, meaning that an actor can also be placed higher above the others for emphasis (such as during Albert’s phone call with Rosie after she’s run off). And even though the stage area is smaller than usual, it does not impact any of the bigger musical numbers like ‘The Telephone Hour’, ‘A Healthy, Normal, American Boy’ and ‘A Lot of Livin’ To Do’, all wonderfully and creatively choreographed by Denis Jones and augmented by some wonderful lighting design by Cory Pattak, as well as the spot-on costumes by Linda Cho and hair/wigs by Tom Watson. Every technical aspect of the production, including the use of live video projections, is perfection.
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
But even great technical skill can fall flat without a decent cast and this Bye Bye Birdie cast is stellar. Right off the bat you have two-time Tony Award winner Christian Borle as Albert Peterson, giving the character so many layers from the focused business man to the love-lorn boyfriend and hen-pecked mama’s boy, and sometimes buffoon. Borle plays Albert so that we as the audience know that Rosie has been the real brains behind his company, Almaelou (named for him, his mother Mae and … dog Lou, much to Rosie’s chagrin), but he does manage to kick it into gear when the chips appear to be down. Borle has great comedic skills and in his dance number to the classic ‘Put On a Happy Face’, it was like watching that young Dick Van Dyke on stage again through Borle’s movement and mugging. It really was a magical moment.
Krysta Rodriguez shimmers and sizzles as Rosie, a very strong woman who also knows that she has to let Albert think things are his own ideas. She wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Albert Peterson, but she also knows she has to take the reins or else everything will fall apart. She also has to deal with Albert’s racially-insensitive mother Mae, who is none-too-thrilled that her boy is canoodling with this ‘non-American’ woman (Rosie is, in fact, from Pennsylvania, not ‘South of the Border’). For all of Rosie’s love-lorn musical numbers, she really gets to cut loose when she’s had it with Mae’s bigotry and puts all of those stereotypes on display in the smoking hot number ‘Spanish Rose’. Rodriguez is a power-house on stage, and during her ‘An English Teacher’ number, she beautifully channeled Chita Rivera (to whom this production is dedicated). Rodriguez and Borle perfectly set the tone for this show.
Ashlyn Maddox is also wonderful as Kim MacAfee, ready to give up Conrad Birdie for her boyfriend Hugo Peabody … until she learns Conrad is coming to town to give her a kiss. Torn between her adoration for the star and her love for the boy next door, Kim finds a kindred spirit in Rosie when the men in their lives just become more trouble than they’re worth. Maddox convincingly sells the character of a 16-year-old girl (who tells Conrad she’s 26 or 27 … and 28) and she has a lovely voice. I might add that all of the actors portraying the Sweet Apple teens are convincingly teen-aged, and many of them may actually be teens which is refreshing when we’re used to seeing 30-year-olds play teenagers on stage and in movies. I totally bought that each and every one of them are teenagers.
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Richard Kind appears as Kim’s beleaguered father Harry, and he is just wonderful tossing off Harry’s one-liners with ease while still being the concerned father who is terrified his daughter is going to run off with the rock star, adn exasperated that Birdie has taken over the house to the point he can’t even enjoy his breakfast. His reaction to learning the family will be appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show is priceless. His big number, ‘Kids’, with Jennifer Laura Thompson (Doris MacAfee), is staged like a vaudeville number with Harry stopping the song to toss off a series of one-liners. It’s all very funny and Kind’s performance is wonderful and natural, easily stealing the spotlight without even having to try. Thompson is also wonderful as the sort of 1960s TV sitcom mother and housewife, and another example of a strong woman who has to let her man think he’s running the show.
Speaking of mothers, Caroline Aaron is a hoot as Mae Peterson, the put-upon mother who dotes — way too much — on her ‘only begotten son’ and won’t let him forget that’s exactly who he is. She’s so overbearing he can’t bring himself to tell her he wants to dissolve the company and marry Rosie, and he can’t ever stand up to her when she brazenly insults Rosie. Mae is actually what some may call a ‘problematic’ character because of her bigotry and the way she insults Rosie’s heritage, but the fact that Rosie reclaims all of those insults renders Mae’s insults a bit more ‘harmless’. Thanks to Aaron’s performance, she manages to make those insults funny enough that the audience can accept that she’s just an old woman from another era. Aaron has the skills and comic delivery to allow the audience to laugh at her, not with her.
Before proceeding, I’ll say here that the rest of the cast is amazing. Each and every one of them brings their characters to life, from the teens to the parents, each and every one of them giving their all, with a special shout-out to Allison Blackwell, as the mayor’s wife, for giving us one of the most unexpected comedic moments of the show. I will not spoil it but suffice it to say her moment earned a huge laugh.
Now … if I have any issues with the show, it’s this elephant in the room (and it’s difficult one to address without sounding offended and small-minded) — the character of Conrad Birdie is based on Elvis Presley, specifically when he was drafted into the Army. Live theatre has always been a champion of ‘color-blind casting’ (the townspeople of Sweet Apple are multi-racial and it’s barely noticed, but this is supposed to be 1958 so it would be unlikely in real life but that’s not an issue in the show) but I have to question the casting of Ephraim Sykes as Birdie. Of course Sykes is a powerhouse performer with major Broadway credits to his name as well as a Tony nomination for Ain’t Too Proud. Interestingly, Birdie doesn’t even have dialogue in Act I, just a couple of songs. But during his first song, ‘Honestly Sincere’, he’s more James Brown than Elvis. In fact, his whole interpretation of Birdie is James Brown, which means we as an audience have to really suspend disbelief to accept that anyone in 1958 would be comfortable with this Black performer kissing a white teenager on live television in 1960 (it wasn’t until 1968 when Kirk kissed Uhura on Star Trek, the first interracial kiss on television, that caused people to set their hair on fire then). You have to give credit to the producers and director to be willing to go in this direction, but in the end and in this particular case, it really doesn’t work as well as everyone thinks it does. That’s not to take anything away from Sykes’ performance, I just question the decision of his casting. I hate saying this because it really shouldn’t matter but in the context of the story, it does.
That quibble aside, this production of Bye Bye Birdie is a joyful, happy experience. The cast is at the top of their game, the production is technically perfect, and the show is filled with songs that you know and love, many of which you will be sure to be humming on the way home from the theatre. This show has a short run at the Kennedy Center, so if you live in or can make it to Washington D.C. before the show ends, I can’t recommend it more. This is a show that simply makes your heart happy, and you can’t ask for more than that.
Bye Bye Birdie runs about 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission. Suitable for age 10 and up.
Bye Bye Birdie runs through June 15 at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. Visit the theatre website for more information about the show. Use our Ticketmaster link to purchase tickets.
Broadway Center Stage: Bye Bye Birdie | In Rehearsal
The Kennedy Center
Check our Ticketmaster link for ticket availability.
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