What's That Noise From Across the River—an Old Movie Soundtrack Remixed?
Michael Feingold
Tuesday, November 1st 2005
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photo: Joan Marcus
Young, Reichard, Hoff, Spencer: Which one's Vivaldi?
Details:
By Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Songs by Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe
August Wilson Theatre
245 West 52nd Street
212-239-6200
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But we've seen it all before, and Des McAnuff's production, with most of its numbers delivered by the four stand-ins lined up downstage concertizing, doesn't make it seem any more exciting than the last 86 times around. The four good actors who play the roles are so non–Italian American– looking that they might as well be doing Forever Plaid, and though they blend nicely, the sound design is so metallic that John Lloyd Young's falsetto, as Frankie, has an uncomfortable ring of Alvin and the Chipmunks; the real Frankie had a riper, rounder, choirboy tone. For those who crave a wallow in the nostalgia at the end of the tunnel, Jersey Boys does no harm; it's a painless, if low-octane, evening. Besides the quartet (Young, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard, and J. Robert Spencer), good performers like Peter Gregus and Mark Lotito enliven the event with flashes of personality. But for a new musical, Jersey Boys seems amazingly like a rerun.
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