In that oft-maligned genre of female-bonding shows exemplified by “Menopause — The Musical” and “Girls Night Out — The Musical,” there are certainly skimpier, more ill-fitting numbers than “The Bikinis — A Retro Beach Party.”
The show, originally developed at Goodspeed Musicals’ Norma Terris Theatre in 2012, has had a steady success on tour. It played the Long Wharf Theatre in the summer of 2014 and has returned there for a three-and-a-half-week engagement through July 31.
What sets “The Bikinis” apart from other jukebox nostalgia shows with all-female casts and lightweight plot lines is the range of the music being remembered, some clever vocal and instrumental arrangements, and — wonder of wonders — half a dozen original songs. These new tunes, by the show’s co-creator Ray Roderick and its musical supervisor, Joseph Baker, are clever pop pastiches that fit snugly alongside the dozens of familiar Top 40 hits from the ’60s and early ’70s.
“The Bikinis” is set at a 1999/2000 New Year’s reunion of its titular Jersey Shore girl group. The four members chronicle their journey from local teen stardom into young womanhood, hippiedom, the disco era and finally, the group’s dissolution due to careers and marriages. Girl group standards, beginning with “The Shoop Shoop Song” and including an ingenious “Mama Said/Shop Around” mash-up, take up a good chunk of the first act. A teased medley of Shangri-Las songs is sadly cut short by a menagerie of ’60s dances like The Monkey, The Pony, and The Chicken. After intermission, we’ve entered the 1970s, so there’s a psychedelic section, an empowered-woman section and even an anti-war section.
“Jersey Boys” this ain’t. It’s a covers act, in a concert format with a live onstage backing band and a chintzy set consisting of a platform, two beach cabanas and stick-and-wire fencing. The simple, sandy setting is enlivened by the fraught relationships among the band members — the thin plot concerns real estate developers wanting to buy out the residents of the trailer park where The Bikinis grew up. There are incessant jokes about boys, bras, beaches and bad relationships delivered as between-song banter, plus more involved routines based on beach-party movies and songs such as “Secret Agent Man.”
All the singers get to do comic routines, with hats and props, when not crooning about “Walkin’ in the Sand” in an “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” Two of them, Lori Hammel and Karen Quackenbush, have been with the show since Goodspeed. Marinda Anderson has the finest voice of the quartet, while Natalie Toro has the best up-for-anything attitude.
It’s tough to keep such a flimsy vehicle afloat for two hours (including intermission). “The Bikinis” may not shoot the curl, creatively speaking, but it doesn’t wipe out.
“THE BIKINIS,” created and written by Ray Roderick and James Hindman, with music arrangements by Joseph Baker, swims and surfs through July 31 at the Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven. Tickets are $41.50-$61.50. 203-787-4282, longwharf.org.
