I’m in Washington, DC at the National Theatre, where I’ve had astonishing times (Merman in Annie Get Your Gun), good times (the road show of Wait a Minim), moderately good times (the tryout of Irene), good-and-bad times in one show (the tryout of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), bad times (the tryout of Joan Rivers’ Fun City), and utterly terrible times (the tryout of Ari).

But I haven’t been in this house in almost 30 years, since the tryout of Tricks of the Trade, which moved to New York and then played one Broadway performance. I’m appalled to see that since then, the interior of the house has been painted a ghastly grammar-school green. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, it was solid white. But shouldn’t the National be decked out in red, white, and blue?

That’s all right. All is forgiven when I see what’s on stage. Though it’s the ugly-as-sin chain-link, industrial-inspired set for Jersey Boys, I swoon when I see how well it fits the stage.

The last time I saw this National Company of Jersey Boys was April, 2008 at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis. That showplace is, without a doubt, the most beautiful theater in which I’ve ever set foot. When the powers-that-be were planning the renovation, they decided to replicate the movie palace as it was in 1929. Here’s how the website describes it: “With scrupulous attention to detail, thousands of square feet of ornate plaster work were recreated on site. Original glazes and colors were duplicated. Craftsmen used a technique known as scagliola to create plaster columns which appear to be marble. 7,300 yards of elephant carpet, duplicating the original pattern from 1929, were especially designed and woven for the Fox. Each of the 4,500 seats had to be removed, renovated and re-installed. Missing art glass was authentically reproduced. The magnificent 2,000 pound chandelier in the auditorium was lowered, cleaned and relamped. Missing brass light fixtures and door pulls were reproduced.” You get the point.

Fine, but there was only one problem: The Boys and their set were much too small and utterly lost on the vast Fox stage. And though I was in Row K, I felt as if I were in the third ring at the Met.

That’s the flaw with these beautiful movie-palaces-turned-into-road houses: They’re beautiful, but terrible places to see shows.

Now at the National, I was in Row L, technically only one row’s worth of distance back. But it sure didn’t seem like it. I could savor the musical for the first time since I saw the original at the August Wilson.

You know what Jersey Boys has? Seriously: One of the best books ever written for a musical. I mean that. Some may say, “If that’s true, that just goes to prove that books of musicals usually stink.” Well, that’s true, too, but Jersey Boys does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it splendidly.

True, the show has a built-in advantage because the group called itself The Four Seasons. That’s what allowed bookwriters Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice to think of the excellent and unique structure of splitting the story into seasons: Spring, when the lads are just starting out; summer, when they start to succeed; fall -- not “autumn,” mind you, because the word “fall is needed because the group does take a fall here; and winter, to show their various states of content and mostly discontent.

Had the group succeeded with any of its previous names - The Variety Trio, The Variatones, or The Four Lovers - Brickman and Elice might not have succeeded, for those names wouldn’t have inspired such a structure for their story.

But maybe they would have, for Brickman and Elice’s accomplishments go deeper. During the first 10 minutes, we’re told that both Tommy DeVito and his brother spent time in jail. Then we see some breaking and entering, and hear about vigorish and money-laundering. “You lie to your wife” is stated as an understood fact of life. Valli’s wife is definitely characterized as an out-and-out alcoholic, and their daughter’s overdose isn’t glossed over, either.

Compare this to all the press that Lennon got when Yoko Ono’s refused to allow mention of one of her husband’s important female companions. Jersey Boys may not be 100% truthful, but telling all these warts-and-all events does give an audience confidence that they’re not getting a whitewash. Even the line “None of us are saints” is followed by another that seems saturated with truth: “You sell 100 million records and see how you handle it.”

Brickman and Elice also show that the boys never lost the common touch. There’s also that marvelous moment when on-stage story-telling merges with real-life: The boys are doing their first concert after they’ve had a hit with “Sherry,” and when they finish, we -- this very night at the National Theatre -- applaud them so wildly that we become the stand-ins for the audience at that first concert. The boys react with wide-eyed surprise, as if they’re hearing thunderous applause for the very first time.

Not every decision Brickman and Elice made was stellar. Why include “My Boyfriend’s Back” sung by three women pretending to be The Angels, the group that made this song a 1963 hit? Just as the staff behind Hello, Dolly! noticed in Detroit that people didn’t want the first act to end with a song sung by Vandergelder but much preferred to hear from Dolly instead, we don’t want to know about the girl group, no matter how entertaining or nostalgic the song. Get back to those boys! They’re interesting enough.

I must admit that once again I heard some echoes from previous musicals. Did Brickman and Elice purposely homage them? There’s a line about “infinite possibilities,” a two-word phrase that is used in A Funny Thing Happened and “Why does everybody leave?” a four-word phrase from Gypsy. Then there’s Gaudio’s saying, “I’m not drawn to the old neighborhood, I don’t go back to the old neighborhood, I don’t give a fuck about the old neighborhood” that mirrors Val’s statement in A Chorus Line: “I never heard about The Red Shoes, I never saw The Red Shoes, I didn’t give a fuck about The Red Shoes.”

Steve Gouveia as the efficiently irrelevant Nick Massi is the only holdover from the cast I saw in St. Louis. Matt Bailey, who’d played multiple roles then, has now been promoted to Tommy DeVito, and he seems so Italian I’m not sure if he’s an Italo-American who changed his name (I’d buy that) or just a fine performer. (I’d buy that, too.) As Bob Gaudio, the charmingly naïve Andrew Rannells has given way to the equally efficient Josh Franklin, while Christopher Kale Jones has abdicated as Frankie Valli, with Joseph Leo Bwarie taking over. He, though, no more than Jones, can sustain the falsetto that John Lloyd Young so seemingly effortlessly brought to the role. Still, the audience loved him, and the show.

Because they could see it. Because they could hear it. Because the sound system wasn’t overtaxed by an enormous house. There was a time when touring companies routinely booked theaters the size of the National, with its 1,676 seats. Now they almost always go to place like the Fox, which has 4,500 seats. That’s how you make big money on the road. Producers care less about your enjoying yourself and more about how many seats they can sell.

But for an audience member, being in such a vast house means you’re sometimes not inclined to applaud; you’re so far away that your handclapping would seem like a voice in the wilderness. Like it or not, part of the appeal of applauding is making your voice heard. Can it be in the Fox? It sure can be at the National. Credit the Jersey Boys producers for doing it right this time.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com