Jersey Boys

Review By: Marisa Schlossman

New Jersey residents are quick to boast that Bon Jovi, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Tony Soprano all hail from their home state. Now, they can add the outstanding Broadway show Jersey Boys to their repertoire of bragging rights.

Jersey Boys chronicles the careers of Jersey’s own American pop group the Four Seasons. In a world where we’re inundated with shows like VH1’s Behind The Music and reality shows featuring musicians and their families, Jersey Boys stands apart as an engaging, plot driven and wonderfully scored Broadway production.

We watch as the boys struggle to get their music heard, as their first hit propels them to stardom and as their careers tear their families apart. We’re given an all access pass into every aspect of their lives, and you don’t even have to have been a Four Seasons’ fan to covet this pass.

Their songs are interwoven into the plot in two ways. One is when the song is sung in relation to what a given character is going through, and the second (and more thrilling) is when the boys perform “in concert” to the audience. The latter transforms you into a Four Seasons concert, with the crowd going wild with cheers and applause.

While the entire cast is excellent, most of those cheers and applause goes to John Lloyd Young who plays Frankie Valli. Young won the 2006 Tony for best leading actor, and probably deserved two Tony’s for his performance. He steals the show every time he opens his mouth to sing, which is quite often. He is so good that the audience sits anticipating his next move, knowing it’s going to blow them away. One show stopping number was “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” and the audience went so crazy for him, he took a non-scripted bow to acknowledge the adoration he had just received. It does make me wonder if/when he leaves the show if anyone could ever fill his shoes, but then again, he filled the shoes of Frankie Valli with a perfect fit.

Tommy DeVito (Christian Hoff), Nick Massi (J. Robert Spencer) and Bob Gaudio (Daniel Reichard) make up the rest of the band, and each have their own stand out moments that provide us with the Four Seasons story from multiple perspectives. Their manager Bob Crewe (Peter Gregus) also contributed to the comedic elements of the show.

While this isn’t the first Broadway show to feature songs we already knew and loved before seeing the show, (Mamma Mia and Movin’ Out for example), this was the one who did it best. You probably will still even enjoy it if you haven’t heard a Four Seasons song, although that person might be hard to find, since they are responsible for such classics as, “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Walk Like a Man.”

The play ends with a great wrap up of the boys’ individual careers and lives. You feel like you just went on their journey ...