rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'
rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#1
Posted: 10/2/09 at 1:20pm
I wanted to love it. I really, truly did. I went in hoping it would surprise me but while it did provide a few moments/numbers that well really fantastic, this BIRDIE is mostly lifeless, dull, and (most detrimentally) no fun at all. Where can the fault be blamed? Well, in this case, two major places. The casting and the direction.
Don't slaughter me but I actually liked Gina Gershon better than John Stamos. I thought she at least had developed a character and really tried to give her all. Her singing voice is...well...we've all heard about it (or heard it). Her dancing is really not very good, but her acting is on point and she is at least interesting to watch. John Stamos, on the other hand, creates an Albert that is about as much fun to watch as a wood plank. Boring, boring, boring. He and Gershon have no chemistry and it's a shame. I wanted Eric McCormack to play Albert. I still do...haha. The rest of the cast is alright (Nolan Gerard Funk is absolutely horrendous...I mean really bad) with the standouts being Allie Trimm, Jayne Houdyshell, and Bill Irwin. Houdyshell is good but could actually benefit from even more scenery-chewing, Trimm has a lovely voice and is a very engaging performer, and while I'm not quite sure what the hell Irwin was doing onstage, I enjoyed every second of it. The kids were really just alright.
So along with a generally underwhelming cast comes Robert Longbottom's direction and choreography. Joyless. Pretty much totally and completely sucks all of the fun out of this show. The only times we get fleeting glimpses of it is during "Honestly Sincere," "A Lot of Livin To Do," and "The Telephone Hour." Oh and the finale, which is the best part of the show. His direction is clumsy and amateurish but in a way that also reeks of that "I know exactly what I'm doing" feel. And he doesn't. Clumsy and amateurish direction on BIRDIE can actually make it more enjoyable, oddly enough. But here it's just no fun. The choreography couldn't have been more messy and uninventive.
The sets were surprisingly minimal save for the permanent aspect of the set (the sliding and moving squares) which was nice. I absolutely loved the costumes...it was the only thing about the show that totally captured the essence of what this BIRDIE was striving to be; bubblegum, unabashed, bright-colored fun. The orchestra sounded fine; it's just a joy to hear these songs on Broadway even if the production as a whole is a big disappointment. They REALLY need to crank up the entire sound system (mics and the orchestral backing)...I was up in the mezzanine and was straining to hear.
I left the theater feeling all of these things but oddly enough feeling like I enjoyed myself. But as time went on, it wore off (very fast actually) and I was just left with the images of this truthfully stale and flat production. Those fleeting moments of fun were gone. The show really could have been something, because those moments are very exciting and engaging, but they do not come often enough and everything in between just falls completely flat. I feel terrible having not enjoyed it but I have to be honest...it's just not a BIRDIE worthy of the material. Longbottom and many of the cast members seemed to have sucked a good 75% of the joy out of one of the most joyful musicals of all time. And it's truly too bad...
*1/2 out of ****
re: rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#2
Posted: 10/2/09 at 2:42pmI'm sorry you didn't like it! I heard Gina has improved a lot since the beginning of previews, so good for her! Also: I think all the kids in the cast are great.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
re: rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#3
Posted: 10/2/09 at 5:59pm
There was a handful of seats empty. Probably like five or six.
At least what I could see. Also, no standing ovation from the mezzanine. And the audience was dead through the whole thing, at least in the mezz.
re: rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#4
Posted: 10/2/09 at 6:06pm
When I saw it on September 24, the mezz had tons of empty seats...so I'm surprised to hear that only a handful were empty.
The audience was also completely dead for that performance as well...I truly think this show will be universally panned by the critics. So sad. BIRDIE is such a great show. The first ever revival did not deserve this treatment.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/15/05
re: rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#5
Posted: 10/2/09 at 6:13pmShould have went the creative route rather than "the most bankable route."
re: rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#6
Posted: 10/2/09 at 6:23pmIt annoys me that a non-profit, which Roundabout seems to be forgetting the meaning of, feels the need to cast "stars" (not that I feel anyone in Birdie is having a tremendous effect on box office) in roles that would be better suited to musical theatre regulars.
re: rOcKS @ 'Bye Bye Birdie'#7
Posted: 10/7/09 at 8:37am
Agree with everything you said after seeing it last night, except I couldn't stand Irwin's antics, as they made no sense to me and looked like ham to overcompensate for a terrible role. I enjoyed Gina and Allie, but found Birdie lacking and John Stamos woefully untalented for someone who has played the Emcee. He could barely hold the notes of his song, let alone add much vibrato/dynamics.
The theater was gorgeous (and entering on the mezzanine level was unexpected!) and the sightlines were fantastic considering I had one of the worst seats in the house (against the left wall, a few rows from the back). I could have used better voice/orchestra balance--sometimes I think the songs would have been more powerful if the voices had been louder and clearer.
This reminds me way too much of the recent adaptations of Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey, except the material they have to work with isn't as good.
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