Theater: “Just in Time”starring Jonathan Groff

Jonathan Groff was not yet born when Bobby Darin died in 1973. But no matter. The spirit of Darin lives on—in the effervescent Mr. Groff, former star of “Glee” and current star of “Just in Time,” the new jukebox musical on Broadway.

Groff was an ideal choice to play Darin. Both were audience-pleasing showmen, with charm and energy in spades. This is particularly true of JG, who is firing on all cylinders from Moment One of this show.

Justin Townsend’s stage is set up as a glamorous supper club, with silver draperies and clinking glasses of booze at the cabaret tables. There’s a bandstand at one end of the playing space, and banquettes surrounding a mini-stage at the other, with flashy gold-and-indigo lighting to color it in.

The book by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver takes us back to Bobby’s humble beginnings in East Harlem, circa 1940. A frail and sickly child, Walden Robert Cassoto (his real name) was not expected to live past the age of 16.

Fortunately this morbid prognosis doesn’t stop Bobby from trying to btrak through in the music business. He meets a nice Italian girl named Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero (later known as Connie Francis and played by Gracie Lawrence), whom he’s determined to not only work with but date.

Soon after Connie hits it big with “Who’s Sorry Now,” Darin himself hits pay dirt with a catchy ditty called “Splish Splash.” But as Nina, his mother (Michelle Pawk) tells him, “That song isn’t you.”

Determined to find out what song that might be, Bobby pursues a radically different tact. He takes an old French tune called “La Mer” and rearranges it as “Beyond the Sea” (aka “Sailing.”) Bobby does the same thing with a classic from Brecht-Weill’s “Three Penny Opera” and voila! his jazzy hit “Mack the Knife” is born.

The play loses some of its steam in Act II. Bobby, now a mega-star in the music world, sets his sights on teenage Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen), a Hollywood starlet, while they’re on a movie set in Portofino. They eventually marry, have a son, but soon the marriage goes south, as does Bobby’s career by the early 1970s.

Kudos to Catherine Zuber for the show’s glam costuming; to Shannon Lewis for the razzle-dazzle, Vegas-y choreography; and major props to director Alex Timbers.

In short, “Just in Time” is an above-average jukebox musical with a way-above-average star. I certainly don’t know how Groff, a Tony nominee for best actor, does this eight times a week, but don’t overthink it. Just be grateful, in the words of Bobby Darin, that Old Mackie Is Back. At Circle in the Square.

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