Bye Bye Birdie

In the beginning there was Elvis. And he was the King. There were plenty of pretenders near the throne, including the fictional Conrad Birdie, who in Bye Bye Birdie, at Music Circus through Sunday, has all the hip-thrusting, leg-shivering, lip-snarling style of the King. Plus, he really, really likes girls and he drinks. Beer, mostly, but still.

Just like Elvis, Conrad Birdie gets drafted, but before he goes off to war (or whatever), he’s going to plant “One Last Kiss” on a small-town girl, sending her into ecstasy and all her squealing little friends into a frenzy.

That isn’t even half of the plot of Bye Bye Birdie. This Tony Award-winning musical (Best Musical and Best Supporting Actor, Dick Van Dyke in 1961) is more about an eight-year-long noncourting courtship, about a man finally cutting the apron strings from the mother and innocent youngsters taking their first steps toward maturity.

All that and it has a good beat and you can dance to it. Also, you can sing along to such unexpected fine tunes as “Put on a Happy Face,” “A Lot of Livin’ To Do” and “Kids.”

Glenn Casale directs with all the innocence and energy of that simpler time. It’s pretty much nonstop, and the raciest it gets is a mother telling her son not to forget to wear his rubbers (and she’s talking about footwear). It’s hard to believe, sometimes, that an era like that existed, except when this talented cast is living it right on stage.

Nathaniel Hackmann plays Birdie to the hilt, selling the iconic rock star pose like he’s the only one that has it. No wonder the girls (and some boys) scream. And while we’re at it, those young people (portrayed by members of the California Musical Theatre Academy’s Junior Company) are really cool. They are as invested in the play as the grownups, and that’s plenty invested.

Amanda Jane Cooper is Kim MacAfee, the lucky girl from Sweet Apple, Ohio, who is chosen for Birdie’s smooch. Cooper goes from pubescent “How Lovely To Be a Woman” teenager to a swooning fan smoothly. Can’t fight those hormones, although Dad (Stuart Marland, in the role played by Paul Lynde in the original cast and in the 1963 movie) sure wishes he could. Mom (Rebecca Baxter) is not beyond being swayed by Birdie’s swaying hips and pelvic thrusts, either.

But it is the story of Albert Peterson and Rosie Alvarez (Larry Raben and Janine DiVita, respectively) that provides momentum to the script. Raben, in the role Van Dyke played on Broadway and in the movie, is a song-and-dance man of the first order. He’s got the strength, charm and comic timing to carry off a transition from half-an-aspirin-swallowing milquetoast to stand-up-to-mother man. As Rosie, DiVita is perhaps the most appealing actress with the most disappointing role. She has played servant to Albert for nearly a decade, running his office, schlepping his bags and being his doormat. All Rosie seems to want is to marry Albert, to be a wife. Only when she walks out on him, gets drunk and goes all Latin-y on him does she show her strength, but it’s short-lived. She’s soon back on the reservation.

Mama Mae Peterson (Mary-Pat Green, in a real audience-pleasing turn) is a tower of strength through weakness, preying on a son’s dedication to the woman who birthed him—until even he can’t stand it anymore. It happens.

As a satire on 1950’s society, Bye Bye Birdie succeeds except where it accepts too many of the conventions of the day. True, feminism hadn’t yet been born, but women worked and wanted independence and acceptance even then. The Rosie the Riveters of World War II got that ball rolling, and not all of them returned to home and hearth when the war ended.

This, perhaps, is overthinking the whole thing. Bye Bye Birdie is a fine, fun musical, and if you take it in the spirit in which it’s offered, it’s sure to please.