The Walton Arts Center kicked off its 2013-2014 Broadway series with the musical “Jersey Boys” Tuesday night. While the average age of the audience was on the greater half of a century, the show provided entertainment for a wide variety of music lovers.
“Jersey Boys” tells the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons with their hits such as “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
Using a unique narrative twist, each member of the Four Seasons had a season of narration, beginning with spring and Tommy DeVito and ending with winter and Frankie Valli, which also paralleled the beginning and the end of the Four Seasons.
“Jersey Boys” had a proper mix of acting and musical arrangements, and the songs were incorporated in a fashion that allowed them to spur on the plot.
The actors, especially Nick Cosgrove who played Frankie Valli, performed the hits to a tee. One patron who sat on the third row was moved to a standing ovation in the first act.
The action scenes of the play, however, featured very coarse language, which the official website promotes as “authentic Jersey language.”
Sexual humor is also weaved throughout, and there were points at which the jokes fell flat on the Fayetteville crowd, though many younger members of the audience snickered quietly.
The performance ended with a standing ovation, and a few middle-aged women dancing in their seats.
“Jersey Boys” runs through Sept. 8, and there are two performances both Saturday and Sunday. Students can buy tickets at a discounted rate from the Walton Arts Center website.
(Published in The Arkansas Traveler on Sept. 4, 2013)
Kristen Coppola 