Since, of course, Times Square has in the last few years come to resemble a Vegas-like mall environment of generic chain stores (and some of the shows, too, have become franchise operations, born on Broadway but planned to simply roll out to other territories across the world), it is only natural that Vegas has repaid the compliment and brought bits of Broadway to the Strip.
I’ve already blogged here yesterday that Phantom - the La Vegas Spectacular has re-made the show into a 95 minute Vegas version that ups the spectacle and reduces the running time.
But some shows are left intact, and Jersey Boys that I saw last night broke two Vegas rules.
Not only is the show played virtually in its entirety, but it even had an interval (which is the one thing it did seek to reduce in running time: it was dubbed an 8-minute pause, with an onstage countdown of the minutes and seconds left - at the conclusion of which the show resumed promptly).
Of course there are some who always thought Jersey Boys has a touch of Vegas about it; a more glossy than gritty expose of the rise (and occasional falls) of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In a review of the Toronto opening of the show in August, Robert Cushman of the National Post put the case for the naysayers succinctly: “”The truth about Jersey Boys is that it’s a well-staged pop concert with a couple of good dramatic scenes… I persist in my eccentric belief that there’s something unsatisfying in spending a whole evening watching talented performers expending most of their energies on trying to sound like other talented performers.”
But though I’ve been mercilessly ribbed by a good friend for daring to suggest that it was a musical of magnificence in a blog headline here after it first opened in the West End back in March, seeing it again here last night — in a carbon copy staging - confirmed the undoubted skill and grace of its telling. It may be a jukebox show, in the literal sense of re-treading all the hits and more of its eponymous characters; but it is also is a show that looks and behaves like a real musical, embedding them in a proper narrative structure.
And in a town where tribute shows are two-a-penny (as the listing of them all on lasvegas.com has it, “In Las Vegas, no performer ever leaves, they’re just replaced by impersonators”), this is an unfailingly classy diversion. The audience are not shortchanged on the songs - but also not on the authentic expertise and experience that has brought it here. It’s even playing in a venue that looks and feels like a real Broadway house - apart, that is, from the drinks holders in the seats, that make it resemble a cinema multiplex.
a show that "behaves like a real musical" But its not Blanche, it's not. Its a very long slog through 60's hits performed in a needlessly fussy and ugly production. Shouldn't we want real musicals rather than be satisfied with ones that "behave" like them?