Theater review
Just in time
Two hours and 20 minutes, with an intermediate. In the circle at the Square Theater, 235 West 50th Street.
That a musical about the too short life of Bobby Darin, the singer of the 50s and 60s who achieved a series of successes before he died at age 37, would be to be one of the most wonderful of the season was not on my Broadway card.
It was a Michael Jackson or Tina Turner. And just although Frankie Valli and Four Seasons arrived shortly after him, his “Jersey Boys” program feels like a broke of a past era.
But director Alex Timbers and his ragged star Jonathan Groff have made magic with “Just in Time”, which opened on Saturday night at the Can at the Square Theater.
For a bit of two hours, there is nowhere to prefer that a dazzling dream of a New York that really slipped, chaired by a singer born in Harlem whose exit was so rich and fast that the man who must be driven by the man who had fed was fed fed fed with bone powered with bone fed with bone fed with bone.
“Just in time” is a blow of joy, thought. And although he does not shy away the struggles of the heart of Darin, anatomically and romantically, the musical is never gloomy.
What Asto is how the program manages to be, at the same time, retro jukebox and fresh minute.
Too often, the biographies of musicians on stage are tied and limited by the perfect impersonations and the same old formula of the scene of the scene of the scene. They are judged, clinical, such as Madame Tussauds wax replicas.
What Timbers, Groff and the designer Derek McLane do Inte is to evoke the electricity of a late and bustling night in Copacabana.
The audience is located in a silver and substitute nightclub club with multiple stages and a brilliant band on the back. Groff is strongly thrown through the room, jumping on tables and dancing with ticket buyers such as the consummate host. The actor, full of charisma, sweeps the old static radio of Darin’s classics as “Mack The Knife”, “Dream Lover” and “Beyond the Sea” with his silky tenor.
Groff, by the way, is presented as, well, Jonathan Groff.
“I’m Jonathan and I will be your bobby Darin tonight,” he announces. The actor also points out in a fun way that we are, in fact, in the basement under “Wicked”.
Self-reference (Hey jokes about his well-known habit of spit when he speaks) is a cunning movement of Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver book writers that allows Groff to become Darin in his life.
“Bobby wanted nothing more to entertain,” adds Groff. And then follow fabulously in his steps.
Much of “Right in time” is a fantastic party. Datties as “Splish Splash” that the youngest team will think that it is a father’s baby conversation becomes surprise showstoppers.
Timbers, who also addresses the atmospheric ragers “Moulin Rouge” and “Here Lies Love”, brings its unique sense of fun to material that does not shout obviously. Here, it is some of the best works of his career, and just what this limited genre needed, such as Baz Luhrmann and “Elvis”.
Darin’s turbulent life outside the stage is also covered, it is believed that it is not exhaustive or exhausting. His relationship with Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence), who wrote some songs written before he reached him big, and his rock marriage with the movie star Sandra Dee (Erika Henningen) shows the personal toll of fame.
Lawrence, whose name seems to have achieved a record contract in 1965, makes an excellent debut on Broadway with a surprising voice that calls songs like “Who sorry now?” And Henningen has a real authority with the most complete emotional arch as his marriage collapses in the public eye.
Bobby also loves and addresses his mother Polly (Michele Pawk) and Sister Nina (Emily Bergl), who hid a secret of existence-algence of him for almost his entire life.
The second darkest act does not say that it does not strive as much as the most innocent first.
But, like Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen in “The Boy from Oz”, the excellent musical thrives with Groff’s natural effervescence and the ability to connect so deeply and personally with the public.
“Mriry advanced,” which won a Tony for last year, was a giant leap in its maturity as an actor. In fact, he had seen him play Bobby in an early version of this musical seven years ago in 92y. Groff sounded great as usual, but the seriousness and world of a man who is full -time aware that his time is short and remains there.
Well, now they are. And how.
Broadway season ends today. One of his most walkable shows has arrived just in time.
