‘Just in Time’ Broadway Review: Jonathan Groff Is Great! But Where’s Bobby Darin?

Get ready to book the Palace, the Palladium, the Hollywood Bowl and the Baths of Caracalla! “Just in Time,” the new Bobby Darin bio-musical that opened Saturday at Circle in the Square, makes it clear that headliner Jonathan Groff is ready for his own solo show on any of the world’s most famous stages.

Groff won a Tony last season for “Merrily We Roll Along,” and there were deserved Tony nominations for his earlier turns in “Hamilton” and “Spring Awakening.” All three are ensemble shows, and in each, Groff delivered a performance that fit beautifully into the story being told.

But never has he sounded this good. He begins the Darin songfest with “This Could Be the Start of Something Big” and follows it with “Just in Time.” It isn’t Bobby Darin, but it is Groff. And most important, it is great Groff. Having seen him in the three aforementioned Broadway musicals, I would not have expected Groff to command the stage the way he does here as a top-notch song-and-dance man.

Then something very peculiar happens. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced anything quite like it in the theater. Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver’s book for “Just in Time” has its star telling us, “I’m Jonathan. I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight.”

OK, so this is not Groff being Darin but rather his playing at being Darin? The “I’m Jonathan” remark brings to mind the recently opened Broadway musical “Smash”: Robyn Hurder isn’t playing Marilyn Monroe; rather, she’s playing an actress playing Marilyn in a Broadway musical.

Got it.

What I don’t get is Groff then telling the audience, “I never would’ve guessed I’d have anything in common with [Darin], the playboy crooner and me in Mom’s pumps, but it turns out I do.” As it turns out, Darin lived to entertain, and so does Groff. We’re not told if Darin ever sweat and spit a lot on stage, but apparently Groff does, because he tells us he sweats and spits a lot. Regarding Groff’s personal perspiration notice, “Just in Time” should come with an audience warning that Circle in the Square is the most refrigerated theater on Broadway, even colder than when Alec Baldwin last performed on stage.

But back to Darin and Groff playing on different teams. Sorry, that “Mom’s pumps” just kind of gobsmacks me. Bobby Darin today is not an icon on the level of Marilyn Monroe, and impersonations are not in order. With “Just in Time,” one might expect what Barbra Streisand did with Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl”; it’s more an evocation than a recreation.

Frankly, Groff doesn’t even evoke Darin. He runs 180 degrees in the other direction from the slightly leering insouciance of someone born Walden Robert Cassotto who always appeared to have smoked one too many cigarettes, drank one too many martinis and screwed everything not bolted to the Copa stage. Darin’s charm wasn’t the flat-out debauchery of Dean Martin, but he was definitely an Italian bad boy from the rough streets of East Harlem. As “Just in Time” points out, there’s a reason why the father (Caesar Samayoa) of singer Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence) and the mother (Emily Bergl) of teen idol Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen) wanted nothing to do with the libidinous Darin.

Groff, on the other hand, is the very white-bread boy-next-door from Pennsylvania Amish country, and it’s a testament to his enormous talent that he can project such a squeaky-clean persona and still entertain us in this age of rampant cynicism.

Groff playing Groff playing Darin embodies what the two men share: the need to entertain, it’s when they’re most alive. But again, there’s a big difference. Darin’s vocals possess swagger. Groff’s vocals are almost ethereal. His head voice is gorgeous without having to resort to falsetto. It’s the difference between the streets and the angels.

Groff needs a musical written to showcase his unique gifts, not someone else’s. He could have simply sung the Darin songbook, but why? It’s not a great collection of songs. Do we need to hear “Splish! Splash! I Was Taking a Bath” ever again? And even if Groff delivered a spot-on impersonation of Darin, “Just in Time” would be a substandard bio-musical. Leight and Oliver repeatedly stick Wikipedia details into the dialogue, right down to how many Golden Globe nominations somebody received. Let’s not forget that the Globes, back in the 1960s, were even more of a joke than they are today.

A particularly smarmy moment arrives in Act 2 when Henningsen, being a most enchanting Sandra Dee, reveals, “There I was, doing a picture with Rock Hudson and I had no chemistry with him whatsoever.” This remark is the only reference to the dead gay movie legend in “Just in Time,” and it’s both absurd and loathsome.

First of all, in “Come September,” Hudson romances Gina Lollobrigida, not the much younger Dee, who is Darin’s love interest in that film. And second, is this remark by Henningsen supposed to excuse her lack of chemistry with Groff? Frankly, I found them very charming together.

Gracie Lawrence’s Connie Francis is another story. Her shrill vocals will make you wonder why anyone ever bought a single copy of “Who’s Sorry Now?”

Alex Timbers directs. He has had his share of bombs on Broadway, “Rocky” among them. On the plus side, he has also been at the helm of such simple delights as “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” and “Peter and the Starcatcher.” When Groff is singing and dancing (stunning choreography by Shannon Lewis), “Just in Time” absolutely dazzles. It doesn’t matter if what’s happening on stage ever makes you think of Bobby Darin. But Groff doesn’t always sing and dance, and when he or anybody else stops to recite dialogue from Leight and Oliver’s book, “Just in Time” simply deadens. Since Timbers also receives a “developed by” credit here, he should have developed a completely different book.

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