The Four Seasons in the Jersey Boys. Photo: Jeff Busby
Oh, what a night! A rags to riches story, amazing singers and dancers, slick choreography, enthusiasm and a huge cache of hit songs that will have you singing all the way home. What’s not to like? Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, which first opened in Sydney 10 years ago, is back, and it’s rocking!
The boys deliver for Sydney. Photo: Jeff Busby
This time around the boys are Bernard Angel and Ryan Gonzalez (who share the role of Frankie), Cameron MacDonald (Tommy DeVito), Thomas McGuane (Bob Gaudio) and Glaston Toft (Nick Massi) and each one is superb, both in voice and inhabiting their roles. The casting is spot on. On pening night Gonzalez’s Frankie stole the limelight of course – how could he not, with that falsetto? – but McGuane’s good-guy Gaudio is perfect, especially when contrasted with MacDonald’s rough-as-guts bravado as Tommy, and Toft’s all seeing but put-upon Nick. Four guys, four different stories and points of view.
This is a rags to riches true story with some pretty nasty undertones, as is often the way with true stories. With the exception of Bob Gaudio these boys are no strangers to the underworld and crime. They make, and in some cases are forced to make, some pretty dodgy decisions but as Tommy says early on in the piece, the New Jersey choices were the army, the Mob, or get to be a star!
Stardom didn’t come straightaway but Tommy (flawed as he is) gets credit for keeping the band together long enough for it to arrive. And the songs, once the boys have kickstarted their careers with the magic trifecta of “Sherry“, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man”, just keep coming. I cannot be the only audience member saying, “I didn’t know Gaudio wrote that (December 1963/”Oh, What a Night”) for example) or that (“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”).
This is a story that incorporates crime, broken marriages and abandonment, rivalry and debt, but the music (and the performances) make it uplifting and joyous from start to finish. The ensemble cast give it their all, and it all works.
All credit, too, to Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise (for the Book), Bob Crewe (lyricist), Des McAnuff (director) and of course the real Bob Gaudio, who composed his first hit, “Who Wears Short Shorts“, when he was 15 and went on to write not just for the Four Seasons but a slew of famous singers.
The marketing for this season doesn’t say “Back by popular demand”, but it could. Jersey Boys has played every capital city in Australia and now it’s back in Sydney. Just like Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons were in the 1960s, it’s at the top of its game.
Jersey Boys plays at the Capitol Theatre until December 16.
