July 1, 2009

Skeptical Critic Surprised by Jersey Boys in Raleigh!

July 1st, 2009

Jersey Boys Logo Byron Woods of IndyWeek.com admits that his expectations for the touring version of Jersey Boys weren’t high, even though the original is continuing three-and-a-half-year run on Broadway and a bevy of awards, including the 2006 Tony for best musical. Besides, his most vivid childhood memory of The Four Seasons involve Frankie Valli’s overamplified falsetto drilling the lyrics “they don’t cry-ee-eye-ee-eye” into his skull from his cousin’s painfully lo-fi hi-fi during several hellish babysitting episodes. In short, not only was he not this show’s target audience, a part of him was actually dreading it a bit.

Well, the skeptical Woods was highly surprised! Wood states that JERSEY BOYS at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium is a canny, streamlined and extremely efficient little entertainment, one that’s managed to nimbly avoid most of the pitfalls of the genre while navigating what it freely admits is the broken pavement of a pop group’s hardly inevitable rise to stardom.

There’s no shortage of dramatic tension, since Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice’s book actually emphasizes the disagreements among the original band members. (Forget the script—the contract negotiations among these quarrelsome musicians must have been a diplomatic work of art.) Ultimately, each of the characters based on an original band member has his say, as the work weaves narrative and music sequences together. The show wisely omits repeated choruses and verses in several songs to maintain the undeniable propulsion that powers Jersey Boys through its impressive first act.

Read the full review at IndyWeek.com.

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