Critic Says Jersey Boys Is ‘Timelessly Appealing’ at Broward Center!
January 15th, 2012Critic Christine Dolen raves about the JERSEY BOYS first national tour’s return to Ft. Lauderdale! Check out a preview:
The real Valli is still out there entertaining his fans at 77, singing solo and with four younger Seasons, as he will at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood March 2-3. But Jersey Boys has its own impressive version of the singer in actor Joseph Leo Bwarie, who has played Valli for almost four years. Bwarie can alter his natural voice (which you can hear on his debut CD Nothin’ but Love, produced by former Four Seasons member-arranger Charles Calello) so that he sounds much like Valli, whether singing in a normal register or that soaring falsetto. He’s a fine actor too: Watch as he registers Valli’s thrill when the crowd goes wild for the Four Seasons, a moment Bwarie has played hundreds of times.Michael Lomenda is back as the funny, slightly eccentric Massi, the bass player who abruptly quit and group and has since passed away. John Gardiner is a brash, controlling Tommy DeVito, the group member who was exiled to Las Vegas after getting the Seasons into double trouble over huge loans and delinquent taxes. Preston Truman Boyd, last seen on tour as the monster in Young Frankenstein, is a beguiling boy genius as Gaudio.
Because of the era it re-creates, Jersey Boys is the quintessential Baby Boomer show. But like so many of the hits it revisits and celebrates, it’s timelessly appealing.
Visit MiamiHerald.com to read the full review.
