Four months on from Opening Night, and I was back in London for the week, with the excitement of our fans re-union night at the beginning of March still fresh in the memory. I thought it was essential to check-out Jersey Boys down in bustling and noisy Soho a little while on from the heady days of previews shows and Opening night at the Royal Edward Theatre. Now that it is OK to have been a Four Seasons fan all these years it was time to go back for another dose of ‘validation’.
This show I had excellent seats 10 rows from the front and although Ryan
Molloy was not appearing I was keen to take in the current performances and
audiences.
I was struck with the age of the audience with very few under 30 and the
domination of women who enjoyed mouthing the words of all our well known songs.
Ben Brantley of The New York Times had reviewed the show that week and as he
said....."Jye Frasca, went on for the show’s star, Ryan Molloy, in the
role of Frankie Valli. As a singer, Mr. Frasca is not a natural Valli. Those
off-the-register high notes seemed to hurt him,......... But he grabbed the
spotlight with such gusto that no one was going to deny him his right to it.
For me, at least, this added a touch of unexpected drama to a show I felt I
knew inside-out even before I saw it the first time."
The real problem was that Jye is a John McEnroe look-alike, and seeing
him after watching John’s Wimbledon commentary
was a bit disconcerting. But this was a chance to assess what JB has now become.
I do think the London
production has taken the play to a new level. The quality of acting and
delivery of key lines and moments in the play, was just sublimely professional.
As was evident at the start of this run that the lead Seasons are all
very strong actors and positively 'compete' for the audiences hearts. This
creates a balance never so obvious to me before with regard to the original
group as I and all the members of the UK Appreciation Society never saw the
original line-up ‘live’. The show matches all of their talents and contribution
and although it would eventually become Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons it
is so obvious that without very competent members, Fankie Valli would not have
been able to have such an extended career as he has had. The Show however has taken on a life of its own and it is impossible to
watch without contrasting it with the reality of what we know of the Four
Seasons live performances and recorded albums.
And with regard to the stories of the women in Frankie's life, it struck me as ironic
that in the same week as the show I read the article about Frankie Valli’s life which said… “Despite his great musical success, Valli always
managed to keep a tight seal on his personal life, including three marriages,
three divorces and six children. Single today, he shares his home with son
Francesco, 20, and has no plans to remarry. “I’m finished,” he says. “I have no
regrets with anything, or anything terrible to say about any of the people I
was ever with. It takes two to tango in every situation, and you just move on
in life.”
He really put his relationship with his
audiences before those with his family and suffered as a result. A hard thing
for a performing artist to do is strike the balance. Maybe it was the road that
became an addiction or maybe the need for the adrenalin and the (particularly
female) adulation …….or maybe just the desire to be singing. As he says in the
show "People don't get married to get divorced" and as he has said in
interview many times… “I am very thankful for my audience, some performers act
as though the audience owes them something. It’s really the other way around.
You have to be grateful for all the good things.”
Two other aspects stood out this month too re
the show……
At Jersey Boys, though, you never sense an
ironically divided sensibility in the response to the music. The audience stays
in the story. They love arriving at the biggest hits, like "Sherry"
or "Walk Like a Man." They get a thrill from them. But they're caught
up in the narrative about the people who gave birth to the songs.
That may just make the Jersey Boys
book the undisputed and official champion among jukebox musicals, biomusicals
or whatever you want to call theatrical shows that try to tell a story with
rock 'n' roll classics. “
The honesty about the past in ‘Jersey Boys’
has also been so illuminating for fans and explains much about why the fan
clubs were so poorly supported in the past and why so many difficult questions
just didn’t get answered. It would be nice to think that the honesty now shown in 'Jersey Boys' would be
followed with greater openness to the long standing fans……but then let’s not
get too carried away.!
But with the news that London’s
Musicals have all been sold out in the last year, the question that lingers is
‘how long can this last?’. With everyone now being offered 1 free ticket if you
book 6 and a recession virtually happening, how long can the show remain in the West End? Only
time and the pockets of the British public will define that, but with the
levels of job losses announced to date in the UK the show will surely suffer by
Christmas……or will it become the ‘feel-good’ escape trip? Whatever happens, we
are making the most of what has been the fan’s best year in decades. For now the one thing we do agree is that we
should enjoy all the good things in Jersey Boys. Nothing lasts forever and this
show should be enjoyed whilst on a ‘high’. Go see it one more time! Ken Charmer
