By David Gordon, News Editor
With the addition of a fourth theater, the Roundabout Theatre Company has become one of the most powerful non-profit production companies in New York City. They also happen to be the most hit-or-miss production company. Their roster this season, "Bye Bye Birdie," "After Miss Julie" and "Wishful Drinking," contains one hit and two misses. (Their fourth show, "The Understudy," is still previewing.)
"Birdie" inaugurates their newest home, Henry Miller's Theatre, an underground tomb with a historic façade (the theater was torn down but the façade stayed up). "Birdie," with its bright colors, bubbly songs and buoyant story has survived the Roundabout's most frequent mistake, dartboard casting and a pedestrian production staged by Robert Longbottom.
John Stamos and Gina Gershon star as Albert, the nebbish music promoter and his secretary, Rose Alvarez, who hatch a plan to get their client, Conrad Birdie (Nolan Gerard Funk) to kiss one girl, Kim McAfee (Allie Trimm), before he goes off to the army. Amiable actors both, neither Stamos nor Gershon can dance (she can't sing, either), and they don't have chemistry. Bill Irwin (Mr. McAfee) is so mannered and tick-driven that he's not even in the same show. Thankfully the adorable Trimm, a real discovery, and Funk, who nails every bit of Birdie, save the day.
"After Miss Julie," suffers from the opposite problem. There, you have a strong cast in a leaden an adaptation by Patrick Marber of the August Strindberg play. The ravishing Sienna Miller as Julie, who in one night decides to sleep with her husband's chauffer and then kill herself, nails most of the layers in the role. Opposite theater vets Jonny Lee Miller and Marin Ireland (whose dialect fluctuates from Cockney to Scottish), she more than holds her own. It's just unfortunate that the 90-minute play is such a slog.
In "Wishful Drinking," we find out the factors that went into making Carrie Fisher a Bipolar, manic-depressive alcoholic drug addict. In her utterly hilarious piece, she relates stories of her life, wonderful and miserable. Her father, Eddie Fisher, abandoned the family to shack up with Elizabeth Taylor. Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, encouraged her to procreate with a step-relative because they both had nice eyes. Her second husband, Brian Lourd, left her for another man shortly after she gave birth to their daughter. And then there was George Lucas, who, when he saw her in the billowy white "Star Wars" dress, told her not to wear a bra because, "there is no underwear in space."
The only woman who can claim to be both a Pez dispenser and in the Abnormal Psychology Textbook, Fisher ends her piece with the sounds of ambulance sirens flashing and proclaims "my ride's here." She opens and closes by singing "Happy Days are Here Again." How happy I was as I hit the street.
Score one for the Roundabout. Let's hope their spring shows fare far better.
John Stamos (L) and Gina Gershon (R) in a scene from “Bye Bye Birdie.”