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| The cast of Jersey Boys Photo: Jeff Busby |
Jersey Boys is a
documentary-style musical about the lives of the original four members of the 1960s
Rock & Roll band, The Four Seasons, and its lead vocalist Frankie Valli. It
charts the band member’s early days in New Jersey through its rocky early
years, where they borrowed money from mobsters to record their first singles,
through to national and international fame. It won the Tony Award for Best
Musical in 2005, beating The Drowsy Chaperone,
The Color Purple and The Wedding Singer.
I’ve seen most of the Tony Award winners for Best Musical
from the last twenty years and this one might well be the laziest in terms of
script and production, but the songs of The Four Seasons are so iconic, seeing
some of the band’s original magic recreated on stage was a lot of fun.
The show opens with a cover version of their 1976 hit “December
1963 (Oh, What A Night)” by a French rap artist, Yannick. It’s a fun way to
acknowledge that the band’s songs are remembered and reinterpreted – but it’s
the only such example in the whole show. And it isn’t a song from the period of
time this show is focused on, which is mostly set in the early 1960s. I guess
the song title makes it more relevant to the time, if not the version of The
Four Seasons the show depicts.
The show is divided into four parts, predictably titled for
the four seasons, narrated by a different original member of the band. There’s
so much narration in this show, it’s hard to really get to know these men as
people – and the notion that different perspectives might create drama or
alternate recollections isn’t really explored.
Cameron McDonald’s performance as Tommy Devito is the
stand-out, with his convincing Jersey accent bringing to life the shadier side
of the band’s history. He’s the first narrator of the evening and he sets a
strong tone that’s unmatched later in the show.
The key relationship is the friendship and loyalty between
Franki Valli (Ryan Gonzalez) and Bob Gaudio (Thomas McGuane). The two men formed
the legal entity The Four Seasons Partnership in 1960 which continues to this
day. Gonzalez and McGuane do a great job of transforming from young kids out of
their depth into strong friends who continue on together long after the band
loses Devito and Nick Massi (Glaston Toff) and evolves into Franki Valli and
the Four Seasons.
Gonzalez is also able to find Valli's falsetto, bringing an authenticity to his role as the lead singer.
The set is uninspiring – metallic staircases, chain link
fences and a big digital screen that contains Lichtenstein-esque illustrations
of moments that are happening on stage with the live performers. None of the
theatrical wizardry really adds anything to the show, outside of the kind of
lighting queues you would expect to complement a band performing its most
famous songs.
The second half of the show is stronger overall, because its
hit ratio is larger and it feels more and more like a concert. The narration
doesn’t go away, but it fades into the background until the finale where each
of the lead characters takes a moment to update us on their lives since the
1960s.
The female characters are poorly drawn and badly used. Effectively
the show has Frank Valli’s wife, a series of “conquests” for the men, a girl
group that is referred to as “infinite possibilities” for the four boys – and later
we meet Valli’s daughter, whose purpose in the narrative is to die and give
Valli something to be sad about. For a “documentary”, this musical doesn’t care
much for interesting portraits of people at all, but especially not women.
Jersey Boys might
be of interest if you remember the period or you really want to see the songs
of The Four Seasons performed live – I cannot fault the musical performances.
Or if you want to add it to a list of shows that have won Tony Awards for
Best Musical that you have seen.
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