Jersey Boys, National Theater

Jersey Boys at the National Theater

As stated in Wikipedia, Jersey Boys is a documentary-style musical based on the lives of one of the most successful 1960s rock 'n roll groups, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The group sold more than 175 million albums. The musical opened on Broadway on November 6, 2005 at the August Wilson Theatre.

(Washington Post photo by Joan Marcus. From left, Steve Gouveia, Joseph Leo Bwarie, Josh Franklin and Matt Bailey in the touring production.)

As mentioned in the Washington Post review, this show is great entertainment. It was a great show. The audience loved it, and so did I. Most of all, the audience (and I) loved the singing of the old songs; the singers were truly excellent, singing the songs as they were sung by the original singers. The story of the group was also interesting, but the songs were what the audience wanted to hear.

A complete list of the songs in the performance is given in the Wikipedia article. The audience was particularly excited to hear the top hits of the group, beginning with their first huge hit, "Sherry", then "Walk Like a Man" and later, "My Eyes Adored You" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You". Many in the audience were moved to tears on hearing the songs sung so well.

The theater was filled to capacity, and when I entered the theater, I noticed that the audience was different from a "normal" Washington, DC, audience. Washington is a white-collar town, and when Washingtonians go out to the theater, men wear white shirts and ties, almost exclusively, and women wear dressy clothes. In this audience, very few men wore ties; I guessed not more than a dozen ties in the entire audience, and a similar number of white shirts. Instead, men wore open-neck colored shirts and sport jackets. I had the very strong feeling that most of the people in the audience were from out of town. Then during the performance, I began to understand the audience.

At one point in the show, one of the cast members said, "We weren't a social movement like the Beatles." He explained that their fans were blue-collar workers: "They were the factory workers, the truck drivers, the pretty girls with circles under their eyes behind the counters at the diner." The audience reflected that fan base -- blue-collar workers, now retired. It was wonderful, just as the show was wonderful. I left the theater feeling uplifted and happy, the way I love to feel, and the way all audience members want to feel after seeing a show. It was entertaining; it was joyful; it was wonderful.