Jersey Boys national tour is currently performing at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium and continue through Sunday July 15, 2012. The review of Jersey Boys musical by Louis Hobson at Calgary Sun is presented below:
It’s a big, brassy, crowd-pleaser of a musical about the rags-to-riches story of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi who, as The Four Seasons, were the chart-topping sensation of the 1960s.
From the nightly standing ovations this musical is receiving at the Jubilee Auditorium, their music is every bit as infectious today as it was when it first made history.
The moment Joseph Leo Bwarie (Valli), Preston Truman Boyd (Gaudio), John Gardiner (DeVito) and Michael Lomenda (Massi) belt out such Four Seasons anthems as Sherry, Walk Like a Man and Big Girls Don’t Cry, you can feel the electric charge that surges through the audience.
It takes almost 40 minutes of the first act for this to happen because it took years for DeVito, Valli and Massi to find Gaudio, who was to write the songs that exploited Valli’s incredible falsetto.
Before that they covered other people’s music, but once Gaudio joined the group, the magic happened for The Four Seasons, as it does again for Jersey Boys.
As far as this Jersey Boys goes, Boyd brings as much magic and electricity to the show as Gaudio brought to the music. He is a mesmerizing quadruple threat of a performer who can act, sing, dance and play keyboard. He gives Jersey Boys the boost it needs and his part of the storyline brings some genuine tension and pathos to the musical.
Then there’s Bwarie. Without a ticking time bomb of a performer like Bwarie you simply can’t have a Jersey Boys. Valli had a distinctive sound and an amazing falsetto and Bwarie goes beyond just replicating it. He doesn’t just sing from his diaphragm and voice box. Bwarie’s sound comes from his heart and soul.
Jersey Boys works a bit like a concert inside a musical. When the quartet sings The Four Seasons’ hits and the audience goes wild, it’s near impossible to tell whether Bwarie, Boyd, Gardiner and Lomenda are accepting the applause as their characters or themselves. Either way, it is a love affair between performers and audience.
Jersey Boys is not the kind of musical you analyze. You just sit back and revel in its flash, glitz and pulsating energy.
Read the complete review {Via CalgarySun.com}
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