There are irritating intrusions, including signing autographs after a robbery while the police sirens close in, arguing about whose name should go first in the front-page newspaper stories (Bonnie insists on the same “Bonnie and Clyde” she uses for the title of her long, ballad-shape poem that was published after their deaths, insisting, “Sorry, honey, but nothin’ rhymes with Clyde and Bonnie”). Then there is the score, mediocre at worst, but sometimes a great deal better than that. I’ve never been a fan of Don Black’s corny kindergarten lyrics to James Bond theme songs (“Thunderball,” anyone?) and lugubrious Andrew Lloyd Webber scores, or of composer Frank Wildhorn’s cloying music for boring period pieces (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll and Hyde, The Civil War), but Mr. Wildhorn does his best, most diversified work here. He has never settled on a uniformly identifiable style, which is O.K., I guess, as long as the style you settle on is not lachrymose musical sludge. This time, his music is surprisingly melodic and versatile. For two rebels with a cause outside the law, trapped victims of the Depression, the romantic, deluded protagonists of Bonnie and Clyde invite an eclectic and restless surge of beats and rhythms and styles, moving through the cycles of doom with reckless fury. The two stars do their darnedest to flesh out both the danger and romance that turned them into folk heroes, and Mr. Wildhorn’s eclectic score gives them room to test their contrasting moods: country, Broadway, blues, and Texas two-step music fit for a county fair, with banjos, rodeo fiddles and, am I wrong, or did I hear a harmonica somewhere in the orchestra pit? Jeff Calhoun sews it together on a Depression canvas broad enough to reflect a whole decade. I’m glad he included actual photos of the real Bonnie and Clyde. She was no Faye Dunaway, and he was plain as a plow mule in a tobacco field.
And so we’ve got ourselves here a down-home musical with guns and whiskey and take-home tunes. You could do worse. Is it great? It’s no My Fair Lady. Will it go down in Broadway history as a milestone? Probably not. But I found it tuneful, lively and highly enjoyable. Just ignore the mixed reviews, and have a rompin’, stompin’ good time.
rreed@observer.com