“I love you baby，Trust in me when I say，Oh pretty baby,don't bring me down……”
You may not know the story of The Four Seasons, but you must have heard their songs, especially the can't Take My Eyes Off You, which has been covered by countless people.
On November 9, the Broadway musical "Jersey Boys" landed at the Daning Theater in Shanghai for 35 consecutive performances.
Stills from Jersey Boys
Based on the founding members of the four seasons band, Frankie Villi, Bob Gaudí, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massey, this "biographical" musical shows the American band's journey from obscurity to sensationalism and finally falling apart with only one person.
If you ask which band is the greatest band in the history of pop music, the vast majority of people should go back to the Beatles, but in the summer of 1963, an American DJ described them as the "British version" of the Four Seasons when he talked about the Beatles who had just made a splash in britain.
In the early 1960s, Four Seasons topped the National Music Chart with three singles, "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," and "Walk Like a Man," setting a new record for American pop music, and lead singer Frankie's unique dummy singing was highly sought after.
At the time, The Four Seasons were undoubtedly the most successful band in the United States.
Their songs have grown up with a generation of Americans, but with the frequent contradictions within the band, the "British frenzy" swept through the United States and hit countless local singers, and the four seasons band that had been popular for more than a decade gradually fell silent.
At the end of the 1970s, the Four Seasons band disintegrated, and although their songs were covered by countless posterity, many people did not know that the original song was them.
In the early 2000s, Bob Gaudí, one of the band's founding members, approached Marshall Brickman and Rick Ellis to write a musical based on the songs of the Four Seasons Band.
Marshall is an American screenwriter who has long collaborated with Woody Allen, and the screenplays for films such as Anne Hall and Manhattan are all written by him. After receiving an invitation from Bob to write, Marshall suggested making a musical about the band's history, rather than just recreating a classic song in a new story, as "Mamma Mia" did.
To write the script, the two writers interviewed multiple members of the band from various periods, mastering a large number of untold behind-the-scenes stories, as well as the "black history" of the band members. In the end, they chose the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, recounting the process of the band's rise and fall, and each chapter was told by a musician from his own perspective.
In 2005, "Jersey Boys" premiered on Broadway, winning four awards from the Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor, and in 2007, it won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
After more than a decade of acting, the Las Vegas version, Broadway version and West End version of "Jersey Boy" have been sealed one after another, and the 31-year-old British director Luke Shepard has brought it to China.
【Dialogue】
The Paper: The Four Seasons flourished in the 1960s, how did they influence Europeans and Americans?
Luke Shepard: The first scene of this musical, a Parisian band covering a song by the Band of Four Seasons, we set the time in 2000, and then flashback to the 1960s when they first debuted, this scene alone has proved that the Four Seasons band has a great influence in Europe and the United States.
You may not necessarily know who the Four Seasons are, but you've certainly heard their songs, which have been covered by many people. Four Seasons used to be a "phenomenal" band that had an impact on both American and international pop culture, but they weren't as well known as the Beatles.
The musical provides an opportunity for viewers to learn about some of the experiences of the band and musicians. It's like I've listened to these songs since I was a kid, whether it's the original or cover, and I'm familiar with the melodies of these songs, but I'm also like everyone else, I don't know the band very well. By directing this musical, I got to know the four boys better, and I'm already their number one fan.
The Paper: How would you summarize the style of The Four Seasons? Do you think they will still be attractive to today's young people?
Luke Shepard: The uniqueness of the Music of the Four Seasons is the beautiful melody, and the melody of each of their songs is very touching and striking. Then there's the lead singer Frankie's voice, which he sings in a false voice that no other band has, and it's one of the most unique parts of The Four Seasons.
This time we used the cast model, the two male protagonists will replace the interpretation of Frankie, they will pay tribute, to imitate Frankie's false voice, the voice is very good.
Good melodies are never outdated, and now there are so many singers, so many bands covering their songs, so many TV series and movies using their music as interludes, which is enough to show that their songs will not become obsolete and can attract many young audiences.
The Paper: Is the West End edition of London or the Broadway edition of New York on this tour of China?
Luke Shepard: The touring version is neither a West End version nor a Broadway version, it's a brand new, brand new version customized for this year's international tour.
The Broadway version and the West End version have been performed in these two cities for a long time, nearly 12 years on Broadway, and at least 9 years in the West End, and the stage design, directing style, and performance style are quite old. The production team of the international touring version is very young and has a new interpretation of the whole play. This play adopts a "biographical" style, much like a movie, there are more than 50 scenes, how do you switch freely on the stage, you need to use very innovative thinking to conceive of the stage design.
I have been watching some musicals performed in Shanghai for the past two days, and I have found that the acceptance of musicals by Chinese audiences, especially Shanghai audiences, is very high, so I also hope to bring some more avant-garde concepts and innovative musicals to China.
The Paper: Where were the actors in the touring version chosen? Do you look for a suitable actor in singing and appearance?
Luke Shepard: This drama is actually difficult to recruit actors, such as to accurately interpret the François false voice, it is already a very difficult thing, and the requirements of this play for group dance are also very high, some group dances may have to play 10-12 roles by one person, and the actors must have multiple faces to interpret different roles.
Because this is a biographical musical, it tells a true story, and the actors have to respect these characters, these characters, so when casting, we hope that the actors will have a certain quality of a certain role.
The international touring version will perform in many countries, which attracts actors from all over the world to audition. Most of our actors were recruited in London, and some of them were from New Zealand and Australia, and the common thing is that these actors all have the DNA of the Four Seasons band.
The Paper: This story is narrated according to the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, with different musicians representing the four seasons, why is this arranged?
Luke Shepard: Constructing the plot in four chapters of spring, summer, autumn, and winter is a very unique pattern, and as far as I know, no other musical has such a structure.
The main reason for the use of four band members to represent a season is that each of them plays a different role in each stage of the band's development. For example, the narrator of the first chapter is Tommy, who played the biggest role when the band first started, or he was a leadership role. The narrator of the last chapter is Frankie, who remains on stage after the rise and fall of the band, and he has a different meaning in the history of the band. Spring, summer, autumn and winter are a good expression of the rise and fall of this band.
The Paper: How did you string together the Songs of the Four Seasons?
Luke Shepard: What we commonly call Jersey Boys is a "jukebox" musical that uses a total of 24 band songs. Some jukebox musicals such as "Mamma Mia", the actors start singing at the first word, expressing emotions, or letting the audience know some of their inner thoughts, "Jersey Boys" is more like a drama, there are fragments of song performance in the play, but these songs are not imposed on the plot, but are part of the story itself, it is about how these songs are created, what happens during the creation process, where they perform, what the performance state is, is a very natural embedding process.
The Paper: How are the members of The Four Seasons living today?
Luke Shepard: Bob Gaudí now lives on the West Coast of the United States. Frankie is in his 80s, quite old, but still performs. Like he had a sentence at the end of the musical, I would always perform, like "Perpetual Rabbit". Frankie also gave great support to the international tour version, and he personally recorded two message videos to send blessings to our Chinese tour.
The Paper: Why did the Broadway and West End editions of "Jersey Boys" choose to seal the box?
Luke Shepard: Broadway, the West End version has been performed for such a long time, it is also a long-distance running play, the West End version may tour in the United Kingdom after the end, and it may return to the West End of London in the future, a play has its validity period, it needs to rest for a period of time to re-incubate, according to the trend of the times to update, so that it will have stronger vitality.