San Diego Magazine / October 2004 / Seasoned Stories

 Email  Print  Feed

Seasoned Stories

IF YOU HEAD TO JERSEY BOYS, the musical about the Four Seasons getting its premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in October, don’t expect a Mamma Mia! Director Des McAnuff underscores that this show is not like the ABBA phenomenon, which shoehorns that group’s songs into a contrived plot. Jersey Boys does utilize the pop quartet’s songs, along with other 1960s-era tunes, but its story is based on reality—the band members’ rocky road from New Jersey to the pop music mountaintop, and the personal prices they paid for their incredible success.

“Every great Seasons song is in the show,” McAnuff says, with the disclaimer that the lineup could change as the musical develops. Nonetheless, he says, “Their story is so extraordinary. [Songwriter-keyboardist] Bob Gaudio was middle class; the other guys were working class.” As their career built, McAnuff says, “It was a strange mixture of blue-collar criminals and innocent pop songs. They would do a gig, then knock off a 7-Eleven. They had encounters with police and with organized crime . . . [Bassist] Nick Massi and [guitarist] Tommy DeVito did 16 years in prison.” The show, he adds, “doesn’t romanticize their journey.”

The Seasons, in various permutations, enjoyed success far longer than most pop bands. They and their most famous component, lead singer Frankie Valli, had major hits over nearly two decades after erupting on the rock scene with two number-one songs in 1962. Jersey Boys, however, covers their story from 1949, when they began as the Variety Trio, and concentrates on the Valli-Gaudio-Massi- DeVito years. They were managed by Bob Crewe, himself a veteran of several pop combos, and their stardom is credited largely to the songs penned by Gaudio and Crewe and the arrangements featuring tight harmony and the famous Valli falsetto. All are cooperating with the musical, Mc- Anuff says, other than Massi, who died in 2000.

Writing the book are Oscar- and Emmy-winner Marshall Brickman, a frequent collaborator of Woody Allen, and Rick Elice, an actor-writer-director who’s a friend of McAnuff from his pre-Playhouse days.

(October 5–November 21: Tuesday-Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 2 and 7. La Jolla Playhouse, UCSD campus, 858-550-1010; lajollaplayhouse.com.)

A MAN IS IN LOVE WITH A GOAT. And he’s not outwardly kinky. He’s a wealthy and honored middle-aged architect, seemingly happy with his wife of 22 years and their son. But he’s having a strange affair, and his shattering secret gets out.

That’s the bizarre plot of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia, which in 2002 swept Broadway’s “Best Of ” awards—Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle. In October, San Diego Repertory Theatre presents the play’s regional debut. Its premise, of course, sounds humorous or worse. But Albee’s talent for blurring the line between absurdity and reality makes Goat a bittersweet examination of values and the reasoning behind them.

Sam Woodhouse directs, with Douglas Roberts and Deborah Van Valkenburgh as the wracked couple. Both are Rep favorites with extensive résumés in film and TV work as well. They appeared together memorably in the Rep’s heralded 2001 production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

Woodhouse recognizes that Goat is controversial, but he believes Rep audiences are sufficiently “adventurous and curious” to handle its powerful theme. “It’s being done all over America,” he points out, adding, “It’s a challenging and stunning story about an epiphany.” One metaphor is obvious in these days of battles over gay marriage, but Woodhouse emphasizes that Goat goes beyond any single issue. “It’s about searching for the irrational, unpredictable power of love.” And he cites an Albee quote summing up the play’s provocative appeal: “It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid.”

(October 23–November 21: Monday-Friday at 8, Saturday and Sunday at 2 and 8. Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, downtown, 619-544-1000; sandiegorep.com).