Bye Bye Birdie (book by Michael Stewart; music and lyrics by Charles Strouse & Lee Adams) is not particularly expert, but it doesn't have to be. There is something infectiously and rampageously lively about it. Staged with exuberance by Gower Champion, who is the real hero of the evening, Birdie has the special crazy zip of a bowling ball on the loose, of rifle shots not so much hitting the bull's-eye as overturning the target.
The show finds its subject in Conrad Birdie, an Elvis Presleyish crooner, and in his shrieking teen-age worshipers. But...
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