More Last-Minute Predictions
June 10th, 2006Seattlepi.com’s Jeffrey Eric Jenkins thinks with a funny and affecting book by screenwriter Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, Jersey Boys may have resuscitated the jukebox form. Featuring a knockout vocal performance by John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli, Brickman and Elice’s clever telling of the Four Seasons’ story — each “season” narrates part of the tale from his own perspective — should be enough to garner at least three Tony Awards: best musical, best book and best actor in a musical.
Lawson Taitte of the Dallas Morning News notes that until the last week of the Broadway season, it seemed inevitable that Jersey Boys would walk away from Sunday’s Radio City Music Hall ceremony with the top prize. This stage biography of the old singing group the Four Seasons got the best reviews of any musical this season, and it’s the year’s only show likely to run a very long time (unless the Disney brand draws the meek and unsuspecting to the new Tarzan dud).
Some hesitancy and latent resistance lingered around Jersey Boys because Broadway insiders (who, along with regional presenters, make up the Tony voters) shudder at the very thought of what they call a “jukebox musical” – one whose score is old songs, rather than ones composed specifically for the show. Still, Jersey Boys is so skillfully put together that it transcends the category.
But then The Drowsy Chaperone opened at the very close of the season. In this pastiche musical, a mealy-mouthed narrator is supposedly playing a cast recording from the 1920s, only to have the show spring up around him with live actors. It got tepid reviews and probably won’t last one-third as long as Jersey Boys. But its songs, though weak and predictable, are original – in a manner of speaking. Thus The Drowsy Chaperone has become the unlikely standard bearer for those who want to preserve some sort of standards and tradition on the Great White Way.
Taitte feels The Drowsy Chaperone lives up to its name – sleepy and sexless. I hope Jersey Boys skunks it. From all indications, though, Jersey and Drowsy are neck and neck for the big prize, and, sadly, Chaperone may have the Big Mo’.
JERSEY BOYS SHOULD WIN AT THE LEAST, BEST ACTOR,BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR,AND THE BEST MUSICAL. IT WOULD BE A SHAME IF THE TONYS WOULD GO TO THE DROWSY CHAPERONE,ALL BECAUSE THEY DON’T LIKE “JUKEBOX MUSICALS”. I NEVER THOUGHT THAT’S WHAT JERSEY BOYS IS.IT IS A “MUSICAL WITH A GOOD STORY”AS THE WRITERS SAY.
Comment by THEA — June 10, 2006 @ 1:57 pm