BUDDY . . . THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY
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Originally created for London’s West End, Buddy is making its way through the American heartland following a Broadway run. Last month a big-budget road company played two weeks at the Shubert; now a second, smaller-scale tour is being launched here by Pegasus Players and Big League Theatricals. Pegasus’s Buddy can’t compete with the Shubert show’s level of glitz and glossiness, nor does it try. What it does offer is a gentle, gritty directness, some peppy dance sequences, and an engaging and solid ensemble under Victoria Bussert’s direction.
Though he’s got nowhere near the stage presence, voice, or dance ability that Chip Esten exhibited at the Shubert, Christopher Eudy makes a likable Buddy once he outgrows the adolescent peevishness that mars his early scenes (when he comes perilously close to imitating Saturday Night Live’s church lady). Lindsay Jones and John Noyes hold their own as Buddy’s fellow Crickets (in real life Eudy, Jones, and Noyes have a rock band called Nubile Thang). Fine support comes from Jason Singer as Buddy’s DJ pal Hipockets (Singer also blows some tasty sax in the later concert scenes), David Boughn and Ramon Lyon as the rock stars Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, Cynthia Suarez as Buddy’s wife Maria Elena, Senuwell Smith as an Apollo Theatre emcee, and Pat McRoberts as doo-wop crooner Jack Daw. The chorus achieves good vocal balance under Jim O’Connell’s musical direction (though the band tends to overwhelm the singers in the show’s climactic rave-ups), and Tom Reiter’s costumes and Steve Wheeldon’s set (a giant jukebox framed by a mural depicting James Dean, Jackie Gleason, Elvis Presley, and an “I Like Ike” button) cleverly convey the 1950s ethos.
Would that it were that simple. But one of the purposes of music and theater is to elevate society’s expectations of itself; maybe, just maybe, an audience that has given a standing ovation to Buddy’s mighty multiracial vision of life might look a little more closely and critically and notice how far short of that vision reality falls.
