The Toronto Plank Panel get into jersey boys (and scotch mints)

The Panel:
Alison Broverman is a playwright and freelance arts reporter.
Kate Hewlett is an actor and a playwright.
Michael Rubenfeld is an actor, playwright, and the artistic producer of Toronto’s Summerworks Festival.

The Play:
Jersey Boys, the touring production (brought to Toronto by DanCap productions) of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that chronicles the story of The Four Seasons. It runs until December 6 at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

Alison: Oh, What a Night indeed. First, the good: Joseph Leo Bwarie's fine vocals as Frankie Valli; “Walk Like a Man” (the first Four Seasons song I ever knew and loved, thanks to the brilliant Robert Downey Jr.-starring film Heart and Souls -why isn't THAT shit a musical yet? I'd go see that for sure); those awesome 50s dance moves (the snapping and the arm arc are due for a revival). The bad: the dialogue ("Why does everyone LEAVE?"), the paint-by-numbers band bio plot. The interesting: this show works best as a high concept tribute concert and the audience really seems to want to believe that they are watching the real Four Seasons - how else can you explain the thunderous applause after each of those clunky "how I'm doin' now" monologues at the end?

Michael: I loved and despised it, while simultaneously despising myself for loving it and vice-versa. I was in constant dialogue with myself about the validity of Jersey Boys as art. But then, y'know, after that 3rd hit, I was putty. From my high-horse, it felt like an impressively superficial piece of commercial genius. It was 75% pure popcorn-musical magic. A couple of ladies in the balcony gave it a standing ovation mid-act. MID-ACT! Why were they standing? For who? Themselves? Their childhood? The creators? The performers? Amazing. They could not help but stand for 4 musical theatre performers (at least two of them were homosexuals playing misogynist Italians). Transformative! A real testament to the power of theatre when not trying to be too arty-smarty. Actually, yeah, I think I was pretty impressed, and it made me want to get off that horse and give it a ton of respect. Nobody is dancing at the end of any of my plays. And, okay, the voice on J.L.B. (that's what we call him) kind of blew my mind.

Kate: I loved and loathed the show too. The first act was, simply put, SO MUCH FREAKIN' FUN. The performances by the four leads were fantastic, the singing was pitch-perfect and goosebump-inducing (that's a good thing), the set was simple but inventive, and the story was...well, it brought a smile to my face and a tap to my toes (even though, unlike the enthusiastic octogenarians in the balcony, I stayed seated for the duration of the act.)

Act Two was pretty dreadful. After the halfway point, the show started to take itself too seriously. Sure, Frankie Valli's story wasn't all lollipops and rainbows, but it wasn't a Greek tragedy either. The underscoring felt manipulative, the pace dropped, and I became more interested in Michael's scotch mints than in how the story ended. (That wasn't a euphemism.)

Alison: I put too many scotch mints in my mouth at once and it hurt the roof of my mouth. Let that be a lesson to everyone. Also, eating scotch mints and chocolate covered almonds in the same mouthful is a pretty awesome thing to do. That's the main thing that got me through Frankie Valli's painful scenes with his daughter.

I agree, Kate - the first act was a great time. But there weren't enough songs in the second act (though the best one, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You", almost made up for the dearth. Whoa), and the story veered into obviously amped up drama.

But the finale brought the audience to its dancing feet, and I heard a man behind me desperately yell "MORE! MORE!" So Jersey Boys is clearly doing something right.

Kate: Yeah, but that guy was yelling "MORE! MORE!" when the cell phone announcement came on before the show...

Alison: Marketing to sufferers of Tourette's Syndrome! That's what Jersey Boys is doing right!

Michael: First of all, I'd like to ask why Scotch Mints are not part of our daily lives more often? They bring much happiness in times of melodrama.

I DID wonder what happened in the second act. Was it a producer thing, a director, or a writer (though I somehow think the writers were not that important in this piece)? Who decided that it had to become maudlin?

I also wondered why/how they expected anyone to care about a character that I don't even think spoke? Did she? And I was also interested in why the writing and stage time for any of the women was a joke.

The more I think about it, the more I hated it. But earlier I said I respected it. I think the reality is that I just feel plain old confused by stuff like this show. It really was bad. Awful. But pleasing. Or was it? I have no idea. What the hell was it anyways? It was a glorified tribute show.

Many people say it is the best thing they've ever seen.

Are most people just looking for Jersey Boys? How many people actually want more than that? Does Stephen Harper? I bet he won't cut THEIR funding. oh. wait a sec. they don't get funding. hm. do you think i can get Des Macanuff to direct something i write? Does that make it valuable?

I still think I should patent my idea. "The U2-sical". Seriously, in 20 years, take a bunch of homos who look like Bono and The Edge. Put them on a stage, and voila, bankable nostalgia baby.

Sorry about the homos comment. Totally inappropriate.

Kate: I think we could probably get funding for that. I still feel like I enjoyed the show, because I enjoyed the first act so much. I just wish that I'd left at intermission. With Michael's scotch mints and Alison's shoes. (They were nice.)

I think the direction was pretty tight, so I'm giving an official shout-out to Des Macanuff. (And not just because I want to work at Stratford.) The show was really, really well-directed. Great pacing, great shifts, a good use of the stage, a cohesive vision. The biggest problem was the writing in the second half...in my opinion.

Got mints?

Alison: Stay away from my shoes, Kate.

Jersey Boys runs until December 6th. For more information go here.