Two guys we think of as New York boys turned out for "
Jersey Boys" last night on Broadway.
Robert De Niro and wife Grace Hightower came to support their buddy Joe Pesci for the opening of "
Jersey Boys," the Broadway musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
De Niro was not disappointed. Neither were Joanna Gleason and Chris Sarandon, Bebe Neuwirth, actors Frank Vincent and Dennis Farina, Jimmy and Margo Nederlander and all the "Sopranos" associated with Valli, including that show's creator, David Chase, Cathy Narducci, Tony Sirico, Vincent Pastore and 'Little' Steve van Zandt with wife Maureen.
That's because "
Jersey Boys" is a home run, an unqualified hit right out of the box.
A joyous, ebullient evening of songs you've known and loved, "
Jersey Boys" also has a killer cast, a real book by "Annie Hall" screenwriter Marshall Brickman and terrific production.
Broadway has on its favorite thing on its hands: an overnight success. Order your tickets right now, because "
Jersey Boys" is going to be sold out for some time.
The musical is the brainchild of Valli and his Four Seasons co-writer/producer Bob Gaudio. Together with producer Bob Crewe, these guys fashioned dozens of hits from "Walk Like a Man" to "Rag Doll."
Who knew they would not only hold up so well, but work so beautifully on stage? Last night, the cast of "
Jersey Boys" got two standing ovations during the show ... unprecedented! I've never seen anything like it.
By just a couple of songs into the show, you could tell that stars John Lloyd Young and Christian Hoff — not to mention Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer — had the audience in their control. And all of them are total Broadway newcomers. What a story!
John Lloyd Young is a 30-year-old Brown grad who's never been on Broadway. He didn't even originate the role of Frankie Valli when "
Jersey Boys" debuted at the La Jolla Playhouse in California (the first Frankie blew his voice out).
Now I can tell you with certainty: Young will be nominated for, and will probably win, the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Hoff will do the same in the supporting category, and Reichard may as well.
The reason — beside their obvious talents — is that Brickman has written a show for them with deeply fleshed-out characterizations. Even if you've never heard of the Four Seasons, by the time this show is over, you will know everything you need to know about them, and care, too.
What you probably don't know is that Pesci — the Joe Pesci from Martin Scorsese films and "My Cousin Vinny" — discovered them in New Jersey in the early '60s. He's a character in the show, played by Michael Longoria (no relation, he says, to "Desperate Housewives"' Eva).
It was Pesci who pushed the disparate guys together, helped name them and sent them on their way.
Pesci told me last night during intermission that he's a major investor in the musical, of course. That could be bad news for his fans, because the humorous character actor stands to make a fortune from "
Jersey Boys." He hasn't acted in a movie since 1998.
"There was nothing I wanted to do," he told me. "But I did a little thing for De Niro here in 'The Good Shepherd.' I wanted to see if I still had it."
De Niro, who had a bodyguard in the theater, nodded in assent. He shook my hand but declined to stand. He was very, well, De Niro. Would he come to the party later?
"I have to get up and work in the morning," he said, referring to directing "The Good Shepherd." He said he was enjoying the show.
Certainly the audience was, including Paul Shaffer of the David Letterman show and Sire Records founder Seymour Stein (he inducted the Four Seasons into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the culminating episode of the musical).
Famed DJ Jerry Blavatt was there, along with teen radio idol "Cousin Brucie" Morrow and WOR's Joey Reynolds. The latter has talked about Crewe and Gaudio for years on his nightly syndicated show; it finally paid off last night.
Young told me that in order to get Valli's voice down right, he listened to Four Seasons records for three months on a loop on his Walkman.
"Then, for the last month before rehearsals, I didn't listen to any of it," he said.
He has Valli's diction down so perfectly it's scary, but his performance is not an imitation. This is not "Beatlemania."
Young is enough of himself — and so are the three other main actors — that they transcend the Four Seasons and become their own musical group. That's why the show works.
Young told me his favorite songs in the show are the lesser known "Dawn (Go Away)" and "Beggin.'"
But when Young launches the group into "Sherry," the audience went wild. The standing ovation is spontaneous and comes a little more than halfway through the first act. Even De Niro and Pesci had to join in.
And later, when the actors and the real Four Seasons took curtain calls to thunderous applause, Pesci jumped up on stage and took his well deserved bows with Longoria.
What makes "
Jersey Boys" so good — aside from the music, the acting, etc. — is that unlike, say, "Lennon," the show is refreshingly honest.
All four of the group members are shown, warts and all, as bad parents, gamblers, etc. Nothing about their story is whitewashed.
The result is that we get a rare picture of real, fallible human beings whose careers skyrocketed from obscurity to international fame. The fact that they made it, and lasted, is the accomplishment. "
Jersey Boys" is just the icing on the cake.
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