‘Just in Time’ review: Jonathan Groff parties like it’s 1965 in stellar Bobby Darin musical

That a musical about the too-short life of Bobby Darin, the 1950s and ‘60s crooner who notched a string of hits before dying young at 37, would turn out to be one of the most wondrous of the season was not on my Broadway bingo card.

He wasn’t a Michael Jackson or a Tina Turner. And even though Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons came shortly after him, their show “Jersey Boys” feels like a Broadway of a bygone era.

But director Alex Timbers and his irrepressible star Jonathan Groff have made magic with “Just in Time,” which opened Saturday night at the Circle in the Square Theatre.

For a little over two hours, there’s nowhere you’d rather be than at this dazzling dream of a New York that truly never slept, presided over by a Harlem-born singer whose output was so rich and rapid-fire that the man must have been fueled by the dire prognosis he received as a child:  Darin wasn’t supposed to live past 16.

“Just in Time” is a wallop of joy, though. And while it doesn’t shy away from Darin’s heart struggles, anatomically and romantically, the musical is never gloomy.

What’s astounding is how the show manages to be, at once, both jukebox retro and to-the-minute fresh. 

Too often, onstage musician biographies are tethered to and limited by twitch-perfect impersonations and the same old scene-song-scene-song formula. They’re judged, clinically, like Madame Tussauds wax replicas.

What Timbers, Groff and designer Derek McLane do instead is conjure the electricity of a late, boisterous night at the Copacabana. 

The audience is situated in a sumptuously imagined, sparkling silver nightclub with multiple stages and a brilliant band in back. Groff spiritedly darts around the room, jumping on tables and dancing with ticket-buyers like the consummate host. The actor, bursting with charisma, sweeps away the old radio static from Darin’s classics like “Mack the Knife,” “Dream Lover” and “Beyond the Sea” with his silky tenor.

Groff, by the way, is introduced as, well, Jonathan Groff.

“I’m Jonathan, and I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight,” he announces. The actor also amusingly points out we are, in fact, in the basement beneath “Wicked.”

The self-reference (he even jokes about his well-known habit of spitting when he speaks) is a shrewd move by book writers Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver that allows Groff to become Darin in his lively essence rather than a pile of pat mannerisms.

“Bobby wanted nothing more than to entertain,” Groff adds. And then he fabulously follows in his footsteps.

Much of “Just in Time” is a fantastic party. Ditties such as “Splish Splash” that the younger set will think is a parent’s baby-talk become surprise showstoppers.

Timbers, who also directed the atmospheric ragers “Moulin Rouge” and “Here Lies Love,” brings his unique sense of fun to material that doesn’t obviously scream out for it. Lo and behold, it’s some of the best work of his career, and just what this limping genre needed — like Baz Luhrmann and “Elvis.”

Darin’s turbulent life offstage is covered, too, though not exhaustively or exhaustingly. His relationship with Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence), who he wrote songs for before he hit it big, and his rocky marriage to movie star Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen) show the personal toll of fame.

Lawrence — whose name sounds like she could’ve landed a record deal in 1965 — makes a terrific Broadway debut with a striking voice belting out tunes like “Who’s Sorry Now?” And Henningsen has real authority with the more full-throated emotional arc as her marriage collapses in the public eye. 

Bobby also loves and spars with his mother Polly (Michele Pawk) and sister Nina (Emily Bergl), who concealed an existence-altering secret from him for almost his entire life.

The darker second act, needless to say, does not fizz as much as the more innocent first. 

But, much like Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz,” the excellent musical thrives on Groff’s natural effervescence and ability to connect so deeply and personally with audiences. 

“Merrily We Roll Along,” which he won a Tony for last year, was a giant leap in his maturity as an actor. I’d actually seen him play Bobby in an early version of this musical seven years ago at the 92Y. Groff sounded great as ever then, but the gravitas and world-weariness of a man who’s fully aware his time is short weren’t there yet. 

Well, they are now. And how.

The Broadway season ends today. One of its most enjoyable shows has arrived just in time.