Review: JERSEY BOYS at Providence Performing Arts Cewnter

JERSEY BOYS has opened at the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC), 220 Weybosset St., Providence. The touring company moves out Sunday May 1, which does not give you a lot of time to pick a date, come up with the scratch and get your butt over there. This play rocks, and this iteration of it rocked PPAC opening night.

JERSEY BOYS opened on Broadway in 2005, won four Tony Awards including best musical, has been running on Broadway ever since, and has since had three North American National Tours and productions in London, Las Vegas, Chicago, Toronto, Melbourne and other Australian cities, Singapore, South Africa, The Netherlands and elsewhere. The musical tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, with different versions of events coming from the each of the Seasons. This production from the direction of Des McAnuff who directed JERSEY BOYS in its Broadway premiere and won a Tony for his troubles, clearly has a firm grasp on the material, as this production hits every mark.

The show succeeds on the strength of its book, but even more thoroughly in its recreation, right here on our stage, of the Seasons' music. Fist, the book. Not only did the Seasons sell a lot of records in their heyday, they also produced some criminal records in their checkered pasts. We follow the group's trials and tribulations and years of struggle before becoming an overnight success. The story is first told from the perspective of founding Season Tommy Devito (Matthew Dailey) and his take is very funny in a My Cousin Vinny sort of way. Frankie (Aaron Dejesus) and Bob Gaudio (Drew Seeley) learn a lot about life from Tommy, assisted by Nick Massi (Keith Hines) to hear him tell it. I'm not sure Tommy is a reliable witness, but he is a very funny witness. Each of the seasons gets a chance to give his version of events and while each is good, DeVito's is the most entertaining, wise guy indeed.

Now the music: The show opens a with a totally engaging French rap version of "Oh, What a Night," moves to some forgettable music our heroes recorded before they became the Four Seasons, and finally arrives at some rip-roaring versions of Four Season songs. I'm old enough to remember the music from AM radio, but I had never seen them perform live. What a revelation! From "Sherry" to "Big Girls Don't Cry" to "Walk Like a Man" all the way to "Can't take My Eyes Off You," The Season-ed imposters captured the audience, receiving ovation after ovation. This cast can really sing.

Klara Zieglerova's set is a giant erector set-all stainless steel with a bridge running left to right. it looked like it could have been used for West Side Story. Whenever the action would change scenes a giant flat screen at the back would display an image helping to let us know where we were-a church, a bowling alley, the Ed Sullivan Show.

JERSEY BOYS runs at the PPAC, 220 Weybosset St. Providence until May 1. Evening performances are 7:30 weeknights, 8:00 on Saturday and 6:00 on Sunday. Matinees are at 2:00 Saturday and 1:00 Sunday. Tickets begin at $53.00. The box office can be reached at (401) 421-2787 or online at www.ppacri.org. Go ahead-you'll have a blast. My wife and I are still humming the tunes, when we're not singing out loud.

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