Just in Time

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My companion at the new bio-musical, Just in Time, was a cousin who, like me, lived through the highs and lows of Bobby Darin’s career.

My cousin, H, told me that back in the seventies he was in the lobby of a posh Miami Beach hotel where Darin was the headliner in their nightclub.  While H perused a magazine, who should sit down next to him but Darin who spent a pleasant few minutes discussing show business and sports.  Darin even invited him to that evening’s show.

This is the laid back artist that emerges in Just in Time, a Bobby Darin who loved his public and enjoyed entertaining.  The musical, though, is not a hagiography about a smooth rise to the top fueled by talent and luck.  Because it is, after all, a Broadway musical, it does push the lighthearted persona.  Dead by age 37, Darin’s life off the stage wasn’t happy: failed romances, failed marriages, and a slowly failing career saved by a late blooming TV career cut short by a weak heart.

Derek McLane’s set, a mirror-heavy art deco nightclub, accentuates the glitz and glossy showbiz aspects of Darin’s life story.  This fantasy venue, exuding Hollywood glamour, fills most of the Circle in the Square stage, including a generous space for lucky audience members at tables standing in for cabaret audiences of that period, minus the smoking.  Some of Catherine Zuber’s exuberant costumes are mirrored, but all are elegant and accurate interpretations of period clothes, all lit with an expert feel for space and color by Justin Townsend.

Platforms move in and out providing areas where Darin’s life outside the nightclub, film and TV is movingly enacted.  The action also extends well into the audience with performers racing up and down the steep Circle in the Square stairs—a gimmick, yes, but effective when the star of the show hovers over your Playbill.

Darin is played by the charismatic Jonathan Groff who—in an unnecessary twist—also plays himself in the role of an on-again/off-again narrator, both watching Darin’s life go by and taking part in it.  Beginning with his childhood in East Harlem and the Bronx—born Walden Robert Cassotto in May, 1936—the musical introduces his mother Polly, a former vaudeville performer (Michele Pawk, excellent, never overdoing the Italian mother) and his sister Nina (Emily Bergl, an experienced singer/actor, who shines in this dark role).  Darin never knew his supposed father who died before he was born and is presented with the ugly truth that Nina, who he thought was his sister was actually his mother, a revelation that led to a dark period in Darin’s life.

Just in Time is structured as a parade of nightclub acts, TV bits and film appearances.  In between we learn of his sickly childhood, his education and his tentative entry into show business after meeting the most influential person in his professional life, Don Kirshner (Caesar Samayoa, sturdy from beginning to end).

He wrote songs for Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence who sounds nothing like the real Connie Francis) with whom he falls unrequitedly in love, doomed due to her father’s interference.

His first big hit was the silly, but entertaining, “Splish, Splash,” and his first film was the 1962 Come September where he met the woman who would become his wife, the perky Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen, capturing both the light and the dark of her persona).  Theirs was a disastrous union, producing one child.

Groff is simply sensational in both his roles, charming as himself and astonishing in his revelatory Darin.  He confesses to being “a wet man.”  He proves it with his near aerobically paced performance, which included much singing and dancing and even a touch of beefcake.  (Well, if you got it—and Groff got it—flaunt it!)

He manages to out-sing Darin, with his richer voice and command of the styles:  Broadway, Pop, Rock and Roll and even Country.

Directed with a keen feel for pacing by Alex Timbers, Just in Time, written by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver (based on an original concept by Ted Chapin), works hard to avoid mere jukebox status by presenting a rounded, fully human character whose foibles give him color and humor.  The effort succeeds only due to Jonathan Groff’s ability to grow and reveal all the facets of a complicated life.

Underneath it all, Just in Time is still a beautifully rendered jukebox musical full of songs that evoke fond memories in the older generation and perhaps some head scratching from those raised on the works of songwriters like Taylor Swift and Adele.  Darin’s most famous song was his jazzed up “Mack the Knife” from the Three Penny Opera. Would his version earn the same adulation today as it did way back then?

All the performers are skillful singers and actors and the few that were called upon to dance are a credit to choreographer Shannon Lewis’ period perfect understanding of the pop world of the sixties and seventies

Just In Time (open run)

Circle in the Square, 235 West 50^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.justintimebroadway.com

Running time:  two hours 30 minutes including one intermission