Jersey Boys and Reality

I saw the "Jersey Boys" at a matinee performance yesterday.

Let's get it straightened out exactly who I saw performing as whom. When I walked into the theatre, the usher handed me a program, including five separate loose slips of paper announcing cast changes. This is not unusual for a matinee, I take it.

The four lead characters are: Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, Frankie Valli, and Bob Gaudio.

As an anonymous informant reminded me in a comment on this blog last week, Travis Cloer plays the Valli role on Saturday matinees these days. One of those cast-change slips they handed me says the same thing: "The role of Frankie Valli will be played by Travis Cloer."

Before the recent changes, I understand, Cloer had played the role of Joe Pesci, the future actor, a 'jersey boy' himself. The script gives Pesci credit for introducing Gaudio to the rest of the group.

So Cloer moved up, if you will, from playing 'Joey' to playing Frankie Valli. Another slip tells me that Eric Schneider stepped into the roles usually played by Cloer. So it was Schneider I saw doing Pesci.

The other three main roles were played as long advertised: by David Reichard (Gaudio), Christian Hoff (DeVito), and J. Robert Spencer (Nick Massi).

Donnie Kehr usually plays Norm Waxman. I'm afraid I can't tell you right now who "Waxman" is exactly. Isn't he the loan shark to whom DeVito owes $150,000?
That's my bet. Anyway, I didn't see Kehr playing Waxman. The slip tells me I saw John Leone doing so. And if he's who I think he is, he did a fine job with it.

I'm not a fan of so-called "jukebox musicals" as a form. I'd rather have the producers of a new musical have the guts to put some new songs into play, rather than relying on the fact that their audience already knows the tunes we're going to hear. Surprise us! Also, I'd like a plot that isn't just a strung-together quasi-documentary that glues the songs together. I enjoyed both Spelling Bee and Chicago far more than I did this. So sue me. Or, as they say in Jersey, Fuhgeddaboddit.

Notwithstanding: I had a fine time. There was some play with the philosophical issue of reality and appearance. We saw the figures on stage talking about the British invasion, and the need to resist it by going on the Ed Sullivan show (as the Liverpudlians famously had) themselves. Then a projection screen appears, and we see two things at once. On the stage we see the actors performing as the Four Seasons did on their Sullivan show gig. On the screen, we see black-and-white footage from that show.

So ... which is the reality and which is the appearance? On the screen we're seeing the "real" Four Seasons, whereas beneath it we're seeing "only" actors. On the other hand, on the stage we're seeing flesh-and-blood three dimensional humans performing. On the screen we're seeing grainy black-and-white images.

So the reality/appearance divide is relative? Like ... wow.

Jersey Boys

The trip is back on. The strike after all is off.

One week from today.

For those of you who haven't heard. Its a musical based on the life of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The other three "seasons" (aside from Valli) were: Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi.

Among their hits: "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Rag Doll," "Oh What a Night," and "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

The cast?

John Lloyd Young plays Valli.
Daniel Reichard = Gaudio
Christian Hoff = DeVito, and
J. Robert Specer = Massi.

Jersey Boys

I may not have the opportunity to see Jersey Boys after all. I had planned an outing to Manhattan early next month for this purpose, but the strike news hasn't been good.

The first sentence of the above paragraph required a double-check. I wondered as I wrote it whether the show is named The Jersey Boys, or simply Jersey Boys. I checked and found that it's the latter. Further, although one could presumably write, "I won't get to see the Jersey Boys..." so long as one keeps the "t" on that "the" lower-case, what would be the point? That would sound as if I was regretting that I wouldn't see the performers of the show, whereas in fact I couldn't name the performers with a gun to my head: what I regret not seeing is the show, Jersey Boys.

The article "the" causes endless trouble of this sort. So do the meanderings of my stream of consciousness. Let's get back into the proper channel.

I may not have the opportunity to see a certain Broadway show after all. The lights of the White Way are dark at most theatres these evenings. One well-publicized exception is the St. James theatre, where The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is playing.

Presumably, the quick settlement of the strike with regard to thatone show only is related to the limited seasonal nature of the run. Nobody will care to see a Grinch-related movie in February. So settlement there is rather bad news for the other shows affected, since it would seem to indicate that everyone expects the strike to last right through the holiday season.

There are a handful of other shows that are open, because the strike is targeted at three organizations. Theatres not owned by one of those three aren't affected. Unfortunately, most of the theatres in the B-way district ARE owned by one of those three.

Still, for the benefit of the curious, here are the shows still running on Broadway:

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Cymbeline
Dr' Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Mary Poppins
Mauritius
Pygmalion
The Ritz
Xanadu
Young Frankenstein


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I culled that list from the theatremania website. Note that "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" is the first on the alphabetical list. This is of course, because numbers are listed before letters in a conventional alpha ordering.

Notice, also, that the word "The" before "25th" is capitalized -- it is part of the name. So, logically, that item on the list ought to be written thus:

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The

The article "The" causes inordinate trouble. That's where I came in.