STAGE REVIEW : Crimp in a Breezy ‘Birdie’

“Hey,” says Tommy Tune directly to the audience somewhere in the middle of “Bye Bye Birdie,” “it’s 1959!”

Hey, thanks for reminding us. We’d almost forgotten. How else could we tolerate those impossibly well-scrubbed, screaming teeny-boppers fainting at the sight of their Elvis Presley-type hero, Conrad Birdie? Or their perfect little “Father-Knows-Best” families?

Or the wispiness of a plot that revolves around the romance of Albert Peterson (Tune), Birdie’s helpless agent, and Rose Alvarez, Albert’s long-suffering Girl Friday (also Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), her name changed in this edition from Rose Grant, and played by a fiery Ann Reinking? Or Albert’s battle-ax of a mother (Marilyn Cooper), a one-woman Desert Storm determined to thwart them, who brakes for nothing and no one?

Watching the Long Beach Civic Light Opera revival of this Michael Stewart/Lee Adams/Charles Strouse musical cartoon, done up in smart primary colors on a versatile Tinkertoy set by Peter Larkin, you have to pinch yourself. It is playful apple-pie, American-period nonsense that never purported to be anything else, but in today’s terms it can cause a few double takes.

When Mama Peterson talks of Rose as “Mexicali Rose who came for the fruit-picking season and stayed to ruin an American woman’s life,” laughter is not the first thing that comes to mind. A bigoted old nut this Ma may be, but even her complaint about riding a subway “full of foreigners” gives one a start. It may be 1959 up on that stage, but it’s 1991 here in the audience, and since a point was made of changing Rose’s name from Grant to Alvarez, someone please explain why the racial slurs? (There are more along the way.)

As the King of Siam might have said, it’s a puzzlement. Especially since the sheer breeziness of this fragile musical is not designed for firing social salvos. This is playtime, folks, and the production, expected to go on tour at the close of this run, is an otherwise spiffy revival, its comedy nicely paced by director Gene Saks, with Edmond Kresley recreating much of the original Gower Champion choreography (notably the Shriners Ballet, which remains the highlight of the second act).

This is no cut-rate show.

Aside from some of the less sensitive remarks she’s called upon to mouth, Cooper is a raspy, unstoppable Mama. The teen ensemble is attractively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Dale O’Brien’s Daddy MacAfee is appropriately dumb and his son, nicely played by Joey Hannon, appropriately smart. As for Conrad Birdie himself, Marc Kudisch plays him without apology. He can sing and he can swivel with the best and do both at the same time. Plenty to swoon about.

But nothing helps us forgive the ethnic gaffes (or want to) more than the boyish elegance of the 6-foot-6 1/2-inch Tune with his spunky shorter sidekick, Reinking. They are pure joy. The impossibly lanky Tune, loose as a goose, seems as disjointed as a puppet, his limbs affably giving way in any direction he chooses. Nowhere is he more magnetic than tap-dancing with the Sweet Apple kids in “Put on a Happy Face” or “Normal American Boy” or the new “A Giant Step,” a welcome solo specially written for this edition.

Reinking, who is terrific in the Shriners Ballet, has her own moments of glory in the solo “Spanish Rose” and the climactic finale, “Rosie,” a number shared with Tune in which they dance lithely off into the sunset. . . . These two are a class act, surrounded by a strong production of a musical that doesn’t quite match their quality and style. There’s nothing wrong with a little mindless fun, but plenty wrong with a lot of mindless put-downs. A little in-house clean-up before the show moves on might be a smart idea.

‘Bye Bye Birdie’

Tommy Tune: Albert Peterson

Ann Reinking: Rose Alvarez

Marilyn Cooper: Mae Peterson

Marc Kudisch: Conrad Birdie

Susan Egan: Kim MacAfee

Belle Calaway: Doris MacAfee

Dale O’Brien: Harry MacAfee

Joey Hannon: Randolph MacAfee

Steve Zahn: Hugo Peabody

A revival of the 1960 musical by the Long Beach Civic Light Opera in cooperation with the Texaco Philanthropic Foundation. Producer Barry Brown. Director Gene Saks. Book Michael Stewart. Lyrics Lee Adams. Music Charles Strouse. Sets Peter Larkin. Lights Peggy Eisenhauer. Costumes Robert Mackintosh. Hair design Robert DiNiro. Sound Peter Fitzgerald. Musical director Michael Biagi. Choreographer Edmond Kresley. Production stage manager David Wolfe.