Here’s a great recipe for a Sunday afternoon: Grab your grown-up daughter’s cool mother-in-law, throw on your going-to-the-theater duds and head to San Francisco for lunch and a blast-from-the-past musical that dispatches your soul on a charming turn down memory lane.
It was one of those typical windy yet lovely days in San Francisco, and I was in pleasurable company. Dining on the 46th floor of a cozy restaurant with a stupendous view of San Francisco recalled an era during my 20s when I spent considerable time in the City by the Bay, although in much more modest surroundings than we girls enjoyed on this recent Sunday afternoon. But it wasn’t until we reached the theater that the time machine gained serious momentum.
Entering a theater for a live musical reminds me of one unintentionally entertaining episode during a performance by Shirley MacLaine several years ago. A reluctant theater goer, my spouse nevertheless graciously accompanied me to this night of song and dance to celebrate our anniversary. Midway through the show, the orchestra revved up to launch into a deafeningly spirited number. Alarmingly, I noticed my husband’s hand going for his pocket to retrieve his handkerchief. I had a fleeting thought of, “Oh, oh!” but I was frozen in my seat. Sure enough, the orchestra abruptly brought its thunderous intro to a sudden halt. The next sound we should have heard was Ms. MacLaine’s radiant voice in song, but before she could utter a single note, my unsuspecting spouse blew his nose at full volume.
Now I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that there are many kinds of nose-blowing methods: muffled little puffs for example. My husband, however, employs what I deem “The Honk” as his preferred technique of clearing his nasal passages because … well I don’t know, it has to do with aerodynamics or something. And with the great acoustics inherent in theater venues, let me just say that this particular blow is probably still reverberating around San Francisco somewhere. Fortunately for Ms. MacLaine, she’s one heck of an ad libber, and my husband generously gave her the biggest laugh of the night, although he personally wasn’t all that amused.
So now that I don’t allow him inside theaters any longer, I enlist others to join me in my cultural pursuits, which leads me back to the Curran Theater in the company of my new friend and mother-in-law-ally to enjoy a rousing performance of “Jersey Boys.”
The musical revolves around the male quartet from the Projects of New Jersey who eventually became Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. While I don’t claim to be a theater critic, I’ve read enough of the reviews to know that the Broadway re-telling of their story received higher praises than their music ever did. The show has been selling out in San Francisco, city of the “Summer of Love” and its accompanying music, which is a full 180 degrees removed from the melodies of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Although the crowd attending the performance consisted mainly of middle-aged baby boomers, a respectable number of younger individuals were in attendance, too. The “real” Frankie Valli performs to this day with a seemingly revolving door of “Seasons,” but I’m convinced the age-spanning interest in the show speaks to the appealing – and ever sweet – nature of their earliest music.
As for me, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons supplied the soundtrack for my high school career, and I suspect that such was the case for many others attending the show because it seemed at any moment folks would leap from their seats to dance in the aisles. Music has that effect on people – it transports us to the times and places of our youth – often wrapping those memories in a soft, golden haze of perfection. Viewed through the lens of time, days of our youth may be remembered as picture perfect when, in reality, they were anything but. So when the four boys from Jersey opened the floodgates on the gloriously upbeat, show-stopping trifecta of their chart-topping hits – “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man,” those songs we know by heart brought us roaring back home.
The early ’60s was a magical time for music. Elvis had been churning out hits since the mid 50s when suddenly a small new window of opportunity opened, bringing with it groups like the Beach Boys who embodied the West Coast; or the classic sounds of Motown that was just kicking off its 30-year run; and the Four Seasons, who personified teenage idealism and dreams of the working class. This window was brief and, therefore, quite precious to those who were there because when the “British Invasion” was launched in 1964, nothing ever sounded the same again.
The story of the Jersey Boys was narrated alternately by the different personalities and from the various perspectives of the four most well-known artists who comprised the group near the beginning. “Tommy” truly nailed it as he wistfully recalled the hold that time and music sustain over those of us who lived it: “Everybody remembers it how you need to.” You got that one so right, Brother.
In the course of telling the messy history of the actual group, the four young actors on stage in San Francisco became a nearly perfect embodiment of the Four Seasons, recreating the amazingly sweet falsetto of Frankie Valli soaring over the harmony of the other three vocalists. It was 1962 all over again, bringing with it the glorious innocence of young love and four blue-collar boys from Jersey that made teenage girls secretly envy their counterparts who had had the extreme good fortune to be named “Sherry,” like the song. And on a windy Sunday in San Francisco, the years fell gracefully away as hundreds of feet stamped out the rolling, infectious beat of a simpler time gone forever by.
Gale Hammond is a 23-year Morgan Hill resident. Reach her at Ga*********@*ol.com.
