By Lucy Komisar
Jonathan Groff starts this jukebox musical about Bobby Darin as himself, saying he will tell Bobby Darin’s story. “I’m Jonathan, I’ll be your Bobby Darrin tonight.” The show indeed shows off the voice and pizzaz of Groff as he recreates Darin. He is every bit as good a singer and performer.
The link between fantasy and reality includes the set, with members of the audience seated at cabaret tables in the Circle in the Square center, lit with modern table lamps, cocktails, spindle-back chairs, facing an art deco style stage.
He walks among tables as if this were real night club. One is a turntable atop which he stands and sings as it moves. Groff is a charmer.
The story is about his quest for success and a woman. He got the first, failed at second. Story corny but real. And common, because the self-absorption it takes for success in a show biz career often kills the attention to the partner needed in relationships.
Darin’s iconic songs went from rock, which I’m glad he dropped, to pop ballads: The Sea, Splish Splash, Mack the Knife, Up a Lazy River, Dream Lover. He played the Copa.
But he couldn’t get Connie Frances to wed him, though she married four times. Frances is played by the terrific Gracie Lawrence, whose voice seems to have an embedded microphone.
He marries another singer, Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen), who he met when they were filming a movie in Portofino, a gorgeous touristic port on the Italian Riviera. (Been there. Very romantic!) He was just 25, they have a child.
But he just wants another fan sitting at club tables; she ends up drinking. And he gets Charlie, (Joe Barbara), the brother-in-law who works for him, to tell her he wants a divorce. How tacky!
Also tacky, show girls with silver spangles and Elvis and Ed Sullivan impersonators to bring us back to the time.
Groff is a terrific performer – singer, actor, dancer. The script is clichéd; it’s Darin’s life but done cartoonishly. This show will do well in Vegas.
“Just In Time.” Book by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver, directed by Alex Timbers, choreographed by Shannon Lewis. Circle in the Square, 1633 Broadway (entrance on 50th Street between Bway & 8th Ave) NYC. Runtime 2hrs30min. Opened April 26, 2025. Open run.