Not sure what to make of the reviews from people who haven’t actually seen the show. Maybe that’s the nature of the internet.
As someone who saw a preview two weeks ago and is old enough to remember watching Darin’s tv series the year he died, here’s my two cents. The show is a lot like Darin was himself: brilliant but flawed, and most of us will have a good time watching it.
That Groff isn’t trying to mimic Darin was never an issue for me, nor should he given the theme of the show. This isn’t the first time a play or musical used a metatheatrical conceit and it won’t be the last, but it is done very effectively here. Groff is both Darin and himself during the show because it requires him to be both a central character as well as a Thornton Wilder-like Stage Manager commenting on the action and the relationship to the audience. Without it, his final address to the audience about the ephemeral nature of live performance and the analogy to Darin’s life would be odd. In this context, it’s quite touching. It’s why the show sticks the landing in spite of second act roughness.
None of which means I’m heaping accolades on the book. The second act has the harder part of the story to tell and it struggles with the task. I’m not sure Pawk’s self-aware line confirming what the audience is probably already feeling is shrewd writing. Part of the inherent difficulty is devoting so much time to Darin’s courtship of Dee and then race into the disintegration of the marriage without so much as a honeymoon phase. The pacing undermines the drama. It also means the other aspects of Darin’s later years get short shrift. His tv appearances, his series, his second marriage…nothing. There would be greater drama in seeing his comeback, allowing the audience to celebrate it, rather than restrict it to a single performance cut off by the Grim Reaper (he died in a hospital after open heart surgery, but whatever.) And while on the subject of drama, am I the only one who finds it odds that the writers give Darin a moment of reconciliation with a dead relative, but pretty much leave the situation regarding a living parent unaddressed? Did I miss something? And near the start of the second act, I swear Darin bemoans Connie Francis’ getting married, which actually didn’t happen until he’d been married to Sandra Dee for about 4 years.
So, yeah. Second act has a tough job and could’ve been better. But what’s right about the show? Nearly everything. Groff is a dynamo and like others, I can’t imagine the show without him. Personable, self-effacing, and talented as anything, it’s his show. But that doesn’t mean this would be better off as a concert with biographical reminiscences. Bobby Darin’s Springsteen on Broadway wouldn’t cut it. As for his acting, watch his reactions during Gracie Lawrence’s “Who’s Sorry Now.” It’s heartbreaking.
Gracie Lawrence’s Connie Francis lacks the gravitas of Erika Henningsen’s Sandra Dee, but she does it with aplomb. Her voice is perfect for theater and her first scene where she gets to be brassy and acerbic is a highlight, along with her performance of the aforementioned Francis hit. Michele Pawk gives a performance that conveys warmth and attachment that could’ve easily dissolved into treacle. Her Outer Critics nom is well-deserved. The “Sirens” work their tails off and are unsung heroes of the show.
I sat in the 200 section FLOOR B, approximately parallel with Table 11. Despite the concerns of some posters here, I had zero view obstruction. If it was my misfortune to be there on a night the Knick’s’ starting five were in the row in front of me, that may have been a problem. Otherwise, not so much. It was easy to view both stages and allowed me to feel immersed in the production, but just out of distance of Groff’s infamous splash radius.
The set design works brilliantly with the meta aspect of the show. Perhaps the club design encourages people who haven’t seen the show to think it’s just a cabaret, but they’re missing the point. Darin’s drive to perform is what kept him going, so what better place to let his life unfold than IN a club setting? The audience blends with the thrust stage set and invites us to be a part of the journey, using the unique design of CITS to great advantage. We see the merging as the club lights retract to the ceiling. It’s smart. It’s also effective, as was the lighting and sound, which was uniformly excellent even as the show split into elements in multiple parts of the theater. If they don’t get technical Tony noms, I’ll be disappointed.
At the end, Groff speaks of impermanence…in art as it is in life. Darin was given a “you’re on the clock” reminder of mortality that most of us don’t receive until we’re much older, and for all his flaws, was striving to make his time matter as best he knew how. If, like me, you have more road in your rear-view mirror than is waiting for you out the front windshield, it’s a heartfelt and affecting moment. It makes the exuberance of the curtain call mean a little more: this is a celebration, of Bobby Darin’s life and art, but our own as well. So we should try to enjoy it and have a good time while we can. Your mileage may vary, and if you feel a lack of connection with the Darin songbook is too much of a hindrance or are determined to focus on the weaknesses of “Just In Time” with a zealotry that would make Torquemada envious, you’ll be miserable. But the rest who go? I think they’ll have a great time and will recommend it, as I’m doing now.
Updated On: 4/26/25 at 06:09 AM
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