Sunday Showtunes

THURSDAY

Thursday night I saw JERSEY BOYS, which is the new musical (just opened about 6 weeks before I saw it) about the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  It’s currently sold out in San Francisco.  It's an autobiographical musical in the vein of "Lennon" or “Ring of Fire” and also part of the new "jukebox musical" trend which is to take the existing hits of a group (ABBA/Momma Mia, Queen/We Will Rock You, Elvis/All Shook Up, etc.) and fit a story around the songs.  In this case, it’s a true story (though I suspect that not all of the songs were written in the years they appear to be in the story).  It was directed by Des McAnuf (The Who's Tommy, Aida) and the staging, sets, lights, and movement were fantastic - always in motion, in a good way.  Very cleverly done.  The show is told in 4 sections corresponding to the seasons  - Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter – with each section narrated by a different character. 

I couldn't quite get into the story, especially in the early scenes, because apparently the founder of the group (Tommy, who discovered Frankie Valli) and others - eventually Frankie himself - were heavily involved with the Mob, and these travails are rather ugly to me since I am not a fan of mob stories, which Jersey Boys turns out to be (or at least heavily laced with).  And I found it hard to root for the guys since their big problems seemed to be what jerks they were and what stupid decisions they made in getting indebted to the Mob and going in and out of prison.  But the audience ate the show up with a spoon - they seemed to mostly be fans of the group and they screamed and cheered from the very beginning – even more so when the big hits were performed (such as "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Walk Like a Man," etc.) 

The great thing was that the audience brought a big energy to the evening - rather like they do in "Mamma Mia."  The guy playing Frankie (John Lloyd Young) was in his Broadway debut – from somewhere they found a guy that could suggest Valli's unique falsetto style, and I thought he did a good job, although he seemed a bit nasal and I could already detect some vocal strain (and the show has not even been open for 2 months!) 

On the whole I did enjoy Jersey Boys.  As I said, it’s playing on tour through March in San Francisco; tickets are pretty much sold out but if you can get one and are curious about the show, for God’s sake please go see it. I have already seen it again in SF and I must admit I enjoyed it better the second time – I was able to see more stuff (it’s pretty fast-paced) and I was prepared for what kind of story it was this time.

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