REVIEW: Jersey Boys by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice

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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