THEATRE LOCAL BOYS Turning the Four Seasons’ saga By David Barbour Shubert Alley handwringers, a small but talent creates the group’s unique sound; tunes (plus a handful of others, including, vocal group, are once again announcing the Nick Massi, the quiet professional who memorably, “My Boyfriend’s Back”) driving death of musical theatre. The alleged culprit always feels on the outside of the action; the action. The production’s tempo and this time is the jukebox musical, an overly and Frankie Valli, whose unearthly, high- unity of purpose is, everyone interviewed broad term applied to shows that make use pitched voice and well-honed survival skills for this article agrees, the work of director of a pop-song catalogue instead of an origi- ensure his stardom through the decades. Des McAnuff, who carefully pared away nal score. Never mind that shows like All the ingredients are there for a stan- any frills during last year’s out-of-town Mamma Mia!, the recently departed Lennon, dard, tears-and-laughter backstage melo- engagement at La Jolla Playhouse, where and the upcoming Johnny Cash revue Ring drama: four young men fight their way out he is artistic director. of Fire have virtually nothing to do with each of poverty, achieve overnight fame, and run Under McAnuff’s influence, the show’s other; among the true believers, they’re a amok; their success turns sour, they come singular blend of gritty reality and pop nos- blight to be avoided, at all costs. apart, then reunite at the Rock and Roll Hall talgia is embodied in the design. Then And yet, the greatest hits of the 60s, 70s, of Fame. However, Jersey Boys is a remark- again, if the production is so unified, it may 80s, and today continue to make their way ably dry-eyed account of life in the jukebox be because the design and show were onto Broadway stages. And, surely, execu- jungle; the book details unsparingly the developed more or less in tandem. tion counts for something. For example, internecine battles, adulteries, addictions, there’s Jersey Boys, a show so unique that broken marriages, and gangster connec- Billboards on the road to fame it hardly counts as a jukebox musical at all. tions that plagued the group. At the final “When we started designing the show, we For one thing, it’s a true story, the saga of curtain, broken friendships are not mended. had no script—just a very loose outline,” Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, drawing At the same time, the book treats the Four says set designer Klara Zieglerova. “Even heavily on the group’s stack of hits. Then Seasons saga as a social epic, following the by the time the set model was due, we had again, it’s not a standard bio-musical, like guys from bowling alley lounges to The Ed no script. We had all read biographies of Buddy or The Boy From Oz. Librettists Sullivan Show, revealing how they held on The Four Seasons and we had a structure Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice have to their working-class fans even as the for the show. But it was a truly collaborative divided the narrative into four parts, each British Invasion and the Vietnam War experience—we were designing the show linked to a different season and narrated by rewrote the rules of rock and roll, and how as it was being written.” a different member of the band, each of songwriter Bob Gaudio’s increasingly origi- One thing’s for sure—Zieglerova took whom comments on and criticizes his pred- nal compositions challenged the conven- the show’s title seriously, “From the begin- ecessors’ accounts: Tommy DeVito, the tions of AM radio programming. ning,” she says, “we wanted one set that hustler who invents the group, then nearly All of this unfolds in non-stop fashion, would show the New Jersey that they destroys it with his gambling debts; Bob each scene folding into the next in cine- never really leave, even though they even- Gaudio, the latecomer whose songwriting matic style, a parade of Four Seasons tually travel all over the country.” Thus, she December 2005 • Lighting&Sound America MAKE GOOD into a Broadway musical PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • December 2005 THEATRE moment of crucial inspiration. Each sparely designed scene is simple in itself, but, when you have dozens of them, the challenges begin to multiply. In the show’s first 15 minutes, the action moves from a stage in France to a nightspot named Club Strand, to a church (a stained-glass cross flies in), to another nightspot (Club Silhouette), to a police station, to a court- room, to jail, to a pizza parlor, to another nightspot, the Seabreeze Club. And so it goes, all evening long, in and out of record- ing studios, apartments, living rooms, mov- ing vehicles, offices, the set of American Bandstand, and elsewhere. A set of four doors becomes the Brill Building, the nerve center of pop music in the 1960s; a set of four toilets becomes a jail in Cleveland, where the group is arrested. Interestingly, this is not the kind of show where moving scenery is part of the specta- cle. Most large pieces fly in and out; many furniture pieces are carried on and offstage by the cast. (As we will see, the lighting often draws one attention away from these events.) However, there is a fairly large automation system, provided by Showmotion. There are two turtles—one moving from stage left to stage right, and one moving up- and downstage. The latter is used for a scene in a car—represented by two car seats—in which the young Frankie Valli is set up for blackmail with a staged “murder.” In addition, there’s an upstage lift PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS for the drummer who appears whenever the Seasons are singing, as well as another lift downstage for, among other things, bench- The above drop, depicting the Hudson Ferry slip, is new season, offering commentary on the es, a bar, and a set of floor mics. part of Zieglerova’s industrial scenic environment, songs, and providing a visual counterpoint which underlines her point that the characters “never Naturally, all this simple-seeming scenic really leave New Jersey.” to the industrial environment. The combi- movement requires a great deal of technol- nation of elements provides a strong visual ogy. “There’s more show underneath the adds, “The set is grounded in the industrial allusion to the unique nature of the Four deck than you would be led to believe,” feeling of New Jersey,” as embodied by an Seasons, a group that successfully navi- says Zieglerova. onstage bridge, two sets of chain-link fenc- gated a two decades of social upheaval. Overall, says Zieglerova, the design didn’t ing, and a skyline view of factories and “It’s so important to have those visual ele- change much in the transition from La Jolla smokestacks. The latter is drawn from the ments there,” Zieglerova says. “It’s the to Broadway. Surprisingly, she adds, “The work of George Tice, the Jersey-based contrast of where they came from, those apron is much deeper in La Jolla than at the photographer, whose treatment of urban tough neighborhoods, and their music, August Wilson Theatre, and we had to com- landscapes is a major influence on which is so vibrant.” pensate for that. On the other hand, we just Zieglerova’s design. Another Tice image, of The basic scenic environment rarely, if love the Wilson, because so much of the the ferry slip in Jersey City, provides a ever, changes; however, as Zieglerova show is staged on the last 2’ of the apron. backdrop for a crucial encounter with a points out, “The design is misleadingly It’s very much in your face.” pair of Mafia dons, which seals the group’s simple. It looks like one set. In fact, there fate. (These are two of three digitally print- must be 50.” That’s because the story is in Pop projections ed RP drops supplied by I. Weiss.) constant motion—the libretto is written Jersey Boys’ non-stop parade of projections, Zieglerova also notes that the onstage more like a screenplay—with each new almost all of them in the Lichtenstein manner, bridge is influenced in part by the Pulaski location marked by the appearance of, say, provides a running commentary on the Bridge, which links Brooklyn and Queens. a sign or a few pieces of furniture. Signage action. The images are seen in threes; the Another 20th-century artist provides a is particularly important here, as a way of first triptych features the word “spring” on second, alternate influence: sometime indicating the many clubs and lounges the center screen, with a radio on stage right Jersey resident Roy Lichtenstein, whose where the Seasons played during their and a couple kissing on the stage-left comic-book influenced renderings of apprenticeship. There’s an amusing gag screen. Summer is announced with an image romantic angst are part the Pop Art move- where a faulty neon sign, seemingly of a couple in a car and a girl with a beach ment of the 60s. Lichtenstein’s style is seen spelling out “Our Sons Lounge,” is fixed, ball. “Big Girls Don’t Cry” comes with in dozens of projections that appear revealing the true name, “Four Seasons images of women doing just that. “Walk Like throughout the show, announcing each Lounge,” thus providing the group with a a Man” comes with pictures of father-son December 2005 • Lighting&Sound America PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS confrontations.