Tight ‘Jersey Boys’ ensemble offers many reasons to celebrate

It's a cool little serendipity that the "Once" musical opened on Broadway the same weekend "Jersey Boys" reopened in Las Vegas, both of them capturing that intangible magic of creation.

If it's still true everyone wants to be a rock star, the superficial rewards of sex, booze and gambling must still be part of the lure. The temptations remain, despite the warnings in "Jersey Boys" -- like so many other showbiz sagas -- that a trip down this road won't end happily.

And hip-hop stars who rise out of the inner city won't argue when Tommy DeVito (Deven May) tells us early on in "Jersey Boys" that show business is a more tantalizing ticket out of street life than the Army or organized crime.

But we've seen all that before, in various show business sagas. "Once" (at least, the movie version) captures a different kind of reward, in that divine moment when the unnamed guy and gal sit down in the back of an instrument store and start making music together.

"Jersey Boys" has a similar eureka moment. Here, the piano is in one of the many bars where three guys have been scraping along from gig to gig as just another mediocre band, until the falsetto voice of Frankie Valli (Travis Cloer) is for the first time matched with the songwriting of Bob Gaudio (Rob Marnell).

But even this moment is a wind-up for the big one that comes a little later, a full 35 minutes into the show. The guys are in Valli's kitchen when Gaudio walks in with a last-minute change of plan: The studio time they've scrambled so desperately to attain will now be devoted to a song he composed in 15 minutes on the walk over. A song called "Sherry."

The audience explodes in the first actual song by the Four Seasons in this musical about the Four Seasons. But they're also applauding the thing they've created, that something as strong as conventional love that will now bind four guys who otherwise get on each other's nerves.

And it happens again, for the third time, in the second act, when it's all fallen apart. As it is noted in the show, "Some achieve greatness, then (expletive) it up."

Gaudio and Valli (Cloer splits the role with Graham Fenton, each doing four shows a week) are now trying to rebuild from the ashes. They convince a record label and radio stations to get behind an oddball song that doesn't fit pop-music conventions of the '60s. When "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" takes that wild swing into a different kind of tune, the horn section struts out along the back ramp of the stage to join the celebration.

There is much more to celebrate in "Jersey Boys," which looks to be good to go for a few more years at Paris Las Vegas (where a more welcoming offer ended a three-year run at the Palazzo). Even if you didn't grow up on Frankie Valli's voice, you can watch it again just to study the mechanisms of how director Des McAnuff created a cinematic flow; how three women, for instance, change costumes to play dozens of parts.

It's a guy's guy musical from writers (Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice) who come from outside the theater world; no tweener show tunes for the "Glee" club here. And it's the rare piece allowed to live on the Strip with any drama or underlying gravity.

The production apparently faced some logistical challenges in adapting to the larger stage at Paris, but they aren't perceptible to the audience. Most of the cast transfers over as well, creating a tight ensemble, particularly among the four leads, as teenage loyalties are stressed until they explode. And when they reach the "winter" of the tale, the Seasons carry themselves as noticeably older, world-weary men.

This production also preserves the show in two acts, as well as the odd tradition of an eight-minute intermission. Not 10. Eight. But the restroom dash is sure to be perfected with this phenomenon that endures in large part because of repeat business.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.