Jersey Boys in China
Written by Zhiyun Zhao
Photography by Aida Ebrahimi
Tony-award winning musical Jersey Boys landed in China at the end of last year. As a jukebox musical, Jersey Boys is the biography of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and includes some of the band's biggest hits. Jukebox musicals are all about memories. I remember seeing Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in Madison last year. For those who have been listening to Carole King's music for decades, watching her hits performed on stage again is enough for them to immediately fall in love with the show. However, as an audience who knew little about King and her music, I could easily see the flaws in Beautiful's plot, and those flaws made it hard for me to enjoy the show, unlike the other audiences who were only there to reminisce. As a band that was famous in the 1960s and the 1970s, Four Seasons is lesser known in China, compared to the Beatles, a band who also gained international fame in the 1960s. Therefore, I was curious to see how the audiences in China would react to Jersey Boys. Fortunately, they seemed to like the show, and the credit should be given to its storytelling, which tactfully combines the band members' music career and their personal lives. In this musical, the four original members of Four Seasons take turns narrating the story of the band from formation to success. However, while they are enjoying the success in their music career, the crisis in their personal lives comes along. For example, the relationship between Frankie and his wife worsens because of the band's constant touring, while Tommy's debt eventually leads to the original band's break-up. When their careers and their personal lives interweave, the audience sees how the success of their band affects their personal lives as well as how the changes in their personal lives influence their interpretation of the music. For example, near the end of the musical, Frankie's daughter dies from drug overdose and the song "Fallen Angel" is dedicated to her. The audience was not only touched by the heartbreaking lyrics and the musical composition of the song, but they also felt sorry for Frankie's personal loss. Even though this might be their first time listening to this piece, audiences can still feel attached to it because the plot helps to contextualize the song. At the end of the performance I saw, the cast received a standing ovation from the audience and people still lingered around the theatre after the curtain call to enjoy the orchestra's closing music. Thanks to the skillful storytelling and the catchy Four Seasons' hits, Jersey Boys is still an enjoyable show even to the Chinese audiences who are unfamiliar with the band.