Jersey Boys Is Marvelous in Minneapolis!
April 24th, 2011
The rave reviews are starting to pop up online for the JERSEY BOYS national tour production’s return to the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Here’s a sneak peek:
Dominic P. Papatola, TwinCities.com: But “Jersey Boys” puts the audience on an exhilarating roller coaster, allowing it the vicarious thrill of watching the dizzying climb and the precipitous fall of the characters on stage before declaring ultimate triumph and sending the crowd home singing.
It would be overstating things to say that the show is so bulletproof that casting doesn’t matter — not many men out there can scale the vocal ladder the way Valli does, and Bwarie’s swarthy good looks complete the package…Bailey brings a distinctly menacing edge to Tommy DeVito, who — in this telling of the tale — is the most crooked member of the Four Seasons. VanAntwerp brings a disarming charm and quiet confidence to his performance as the group’s songwriting genius, Bob Gaudio. As the low-key, low-voiced, self-described “Ringo” of the band, Gouveia brings a nice deadpan to the role of Nick Massi, even if his singing voice seemed a little raw at Friday night’s performance.
These four guys fuel a potent telling of a rags-to-riches story and very ably help demonstrate why the music that goes with that story continues to endure.
Jay Gabler, TCPlanet.com: The Jersey Boys script by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice makes a case for the Four Seasons as the working man’s pop heroes…Jersey Boys moves with an almost flickering speed, props zooming in and popping up as one scene melts into another, and another, and then another. It’s the theatrical equivalent of a series of head-over-heels flips, and under the direction of Des McAnuff, Jersey Boys sticks all its landings. The fleet, lucid approach is a good fit for this story about a band who succeeded in a musical landscape where emotional expression had to be confined within strict parameters, delivered with enough slickness to let it slide down the throats of mainstream radio programmers.
