Nowadays, music biopics are a dime a dozen. If someone’s so much as stepped in front of a microphone, there’s a good chance that someone can make an inspirational story out of it. However, there’s something about Jersey Boys that transcends the tropes. Even as it delivers the comfortable ground of Four Seasons hits, it manages to deliver a drama that is packed full of twists and turns that prove life is stranger than fiction. The results more than speak for themselves as La Mirada’s recent production manages to tell this story of a ground that sold over 100 million records and reshaped the pop landscape with a certain panache. With everything clicked into place, their production is another high point in a recent run of shows that deliver on spectacle and heart.
Whether or not audiences want to admit it, The Four Seasons are an interesting group. As the title alludes to, they’re a bunch of crooners from New Jersey who have a dream of making it in the music business. From their humble beginnings, the story weaves in and out of each musician’s personal perspective, outlining a tale that is full of success and corruption. A lot of it almost seems too good to be true, and that’s why it works perfectly as a piece of theater.
One thing that’s refreshing about the plot is that The Four Seasons aren’t as squeaky clean as Frankie Valli’s voice would suggest. Despite the image, there’s plenty of comedic beats driven from a mob-adjacent lifestyle. Who would want to owe debts to somebody who finds fake murdering people in cars funny? And yet, each member fits a different archetype, working perfectly as dramatic tools that for all of the disaster, familial sacrifice is unbreakable. Like all music biopics to follow, it’s not exactly as easy as a few lucky breaks. It’s an ongoing affair, and one that builds to an emotionally strong retelling of how “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” became the saving grace Top 40 hit.
Because of how La Mirada has staged scenes like this, the audience cuts between the internal drama of character and the performative nature of music. This scene in particular may serve as the show’s greatest chess piece for one reason. The melody builds from the floor of the stage. It’s already a sentimental beat that is sure to draw some familiarity. However, it’s as much about the aside of others watching on in desperate anticipation, believing that they have a hit on their hands but must wait for the receipts to come in. From the second floor of the stage, they ingeniously wait. The emotional divide builds until suddenly triumph emerges.
While most shows would get away with simply putting on a music act for three minutes, Jersey Boys insists on using performance as background. The actors do an incredible job of embodying the intensity with which The Four Seasons must’ve performed, able to show why every note matters to them. Even then, the pieces move so intricately that the audience is left in anticipation, watching scenes that feel like they transcend technique. As the lights come on and they do the old song and dance, there is something grander about hearing the hits. They’re as fun and infectious as ever – especially in the hands of La Mirada’s central cast – but they also feel like pieces of their soul captured on wax. Every transaction matters to them. Even as music takes a backseat to later plot beats, it’s clear that this story believes that good times or bad times, the show must go on.
To La Mirada’s credit, there is something mesmerizing about how everything moves on the stage. Actors deliver monologues walking up and down stairwells. They hold key conversations high above the audience, elevating the intimacy into something grander. In one of the cleverer uses of the stage, they even project key information like dates and locations onto the backdrop, even finding the name origin popping up for a wonderful comic gag.
Overall, Jersey Boys is better appreciated as a rich character drama than a musical that reinvents form. Very few of the songs move plot forward, and yet the subtext alludes to progression. Every song finds the characters getting a little more confident as they belt the songs. There’s different glances that hold deeper weight. Not only that, but the humor works beautifully at keeping it from delving too much into sentimental melodrama. This is a story that is so well rounded that it transcends its style and becomes a great night of theater.
Even as many have tried to capture the appeal of Jersey Boys with their own take, few have matched the success of its execution. That may be because it’s less about celebrating a new soundtrack worth buying. Instead, it’s about understanding the traditional style of theater within a music group from Jersey singing under a lamppost. It may not make sense at the offset, but there’s so much to love even if doo-wop is not a favorite genre. The pastiche quickly fades and these characters become real. It’s not about getting lost in the past, but finding relief for surviving such a wild, strange trip. Given that the show has entertained audiences for over 20 years, it makes sense that a lot of people agree.
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