STAGE REVIEWS : ‘Birdie’ Says Bye Bye to Adults as Teens

Yorba Linda Musical Theatre’s “Bye Bye Birdie” is lively enough. You want girls shrieking and swooning? This show’s got plenty of girls shrieking and swooning. But the production is weakened by spotty singing and green acting.

Director Peggy Riley’s decision to populate this 1960 musical with teen-agers makes sense on paper. “Birdie” is, after all, about an epidemic of teeny-bopper lust for an Elvis-style pop star, and filling many of the roles with high schoolers creates a certain verisimilitude.

But “Birdie,” a goofy satire of our infatuation with images and the powers that form them, can be pretty demanding. It makes sense that most productions have dressed more seasoned grown-ups in capris and ponytails, leather jackets and duck tails to pull everything off.

Riley’s youngsters aren’t terrible--in fact, their vivacity infuses the show with some needed voltage. They’re just too inexperienced to exploit all of “Birdie’s” charms.

The production gets help from the adults, but even here it is hit and miss.

No complaints with Daniel Halkyard as Mr. MacAfee, the beetle-browed father who must endure rocker Conrad Birdie and a media onslaught when his daughter becomes an accomplice in a publicity gambit. Halkyard is an agitated mess of conflicting impulses; he hates all the disturbance but, like everybody else in Sweet Apple, Ohio, is infected with a lust for TV exposure. His background romping during the “One Last Kiss” number does much to make it one of the show’s top scenes.

Alan Wager’s Albert, Birdie’s enterprising mama’s boy of an agent, is exasperated and rubbery-willed enough to amuse. Karen Paulus’ Rose, Albert’s demanding girlfriend and gal Friday, is spunky enough to do the same. Their voices, though, are only so-so.

The show’s strongest feature may be Charlie Grant Reeves as the hip-swiveling, smirking Conrad Birdie. Besides employing a spate of Elvis moves in a clever caricature, Reeves has one of the cast’s more controlled voices.

“BYE BYE BIRDIE”

A Yorba Linda Musical Theatre production of the musical by Mike Stewart, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams. Directed by Peggy Riley. With Alan Wager, Karen Paulus, Jennifer Heap, Jill Pierce, Daniel Halkyard, Timothy Goodman, DD Calhoun, Charlie Harrison, Francisca Krueger, Dave Pruhs, Charlie Grant Reeves, Bob Johnson, Jane Saunders, Steve Glaudini, Kay Phifer, Mary Lanuti, Fred Valencia, Jorri Northrup, Jeani Finnerty, Lisa Bergdorf, Jamie Curcie, Angela Pierce, Daniella Benson, Heather Dalton, Sharman Grant, Shauna Holt, Justin Oakley, Zack Bevans, Tim Galvin, Danny Charles, Mike Canney, Daniel Phifer and Rob Benson. Choreography by Darla Dickson. Sets by Edward Huber. Costumes by Peggy Riley. Lights and sound by Robert A. Wilson. Plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. through June 19 at the Forum Theater, 4175 Fairmont Blvd., Yorba Linda. Tickets: $8 to $10. (714) 779-8591.