So this one’s more of a film, but I've included it here because of where it came from. The original Jersey Boys, a Broadway musical, was an immediate hit winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Musical and the 2009 Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Musical amongst other achievements. This is even more amazing when considering the fact it is a jukebox musical, which sometimes don’t do quite as well with the critics and in awards shows. A jukebox musical describes one which is based on music that is already written and is not composed primarily for the show. The music may come from one specific singer or pop group, or it may be from a variety of different artists. Another example is Mamma Mia which is based on the work of ABBA and is also still doing well in London’s West-End. Behind the success of this jukebox show in particular, I think, is the fact that they didn’t try to link the artist’s songs together somehow with an original storyline, which could have resulted in an odd and unconventional story that seemed like little thought had been put into it. Instead the writers used the real life story behind the group on which the show is based, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, since this allowed the songs to fit into a natural order and relate back to the lives of those who’d written them, giving us an insight into the events that inspired the brilliant song-writing.
The story is split into four sections with each being narrated by one the four members of the group; Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi. This offers the possibility to show the story from the personal viewpoint of each of the characters involved, allowing the audience to understand how each member of the group saw the events in their own individual way. The story of the show focuses on the members of the group when they are young and living in New Jersey, trying to find their big break into stardom, as it is one of the only ways out of what they consider a dead-end life. It then follows them as they become big stars as The Four Seasons and then as various issues, including Tommy DeVito’s debt problems with a Las Vegas mob, cause their eventual break-up. Frankie Valli then rises from his past issues and grief, mourning the death of his daughter, to start a successful solo career. As the show ends the characters are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, as this happens, they look back on their successes as well as the mistakes they made over the span of their career.
The new film was well made and stayed relatively true to the original stage production. Its tone was somewhat bleak and washed out which I think matched well with the subject matter and the time period of the storyline. It didn’t try to make the story seem more vibrant and pretty than it was but rather simply relied on the acting to carry the audience’s interest.
The music to the show, of course, included plenty of hits from the band's history, such as ‘December, 1963’, ‘Sherry’ and ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’, as well as ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, the song that kick-started Frankie Valli’s solo career. Anyone who’s already a fan of the 60s pop genre will love this film but the film has much more to offer, with drama behind the music and the potential to introduce this great style of music to a younger generation.
Image from: http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/issue/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Jersey-Boys-Poster.jpg
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