“I’m Jeremy, I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight,” Jeremy Jordan says, working the room at Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theater, which has been redesigned to look like a swanky nightclub.  “How about these digs? Not bad for the basement of ‘Wicked.’” It’s much the same line that Jonathan Groff said when the jukebox musical opened last year.  

“Just in Time” is much the same show – it looks the same (see photos below), it sounds much the same (listen below to recently released singles sung by Jordan) – but when I saw it again recently, the cast change somehow made it feel to me like a completely different show.

At first, this didn’t make much sense to me. Jeremy Jordan and Jonathan Groff have much in common. They were born within four months of one another, they are both talented musical theater stars who act as well as they sing; they even each had supporting roles in TV musical series – Jordan in Smash and Groff in Glee.

  But I landed on what I suspect may account for my differing reaction when I compared Groff’s and Jordan’s brief personal patter right after the remark about the basement of “Wicked.”

Here is what Groff said, effortlessly self-deprecating, impish, and gay

“Whether you’re a fan of Bobby Darin, or one of the twelve people who watched “Mindhunter” – it doesn’t matter how I got you, all that matters is that you’re here and, tonight, you’re mine… Now, I first heard this next song the way we all first heard this next song – twirling in our mother’s heels in Pennsylvania Amish country, listening to our father’s records. You see, all I ever wanted to do growing up was sing and dance on a stage, to entertain. To be trusted with a couple hours of your day. To find your eyes other there in the dark and make a connection.”

Jeremy Jordan couldn’t say all that; it’s not his story.  So instead, he says:

“I’m so happy to be here. My life has been nuts lately. This is my third Broadway show in less  than two years, and I know what you’re thinking “Does the man not know how to get home?” but, the truth is – after dying in a cave, being eaten by a plant, and getting shot to shit in every other show I’ve done – I’m just trying to make it to curtain call alive for once. This show’s not gonna get me any closer, but at least I get to go to Italy first. And be with all of you wonderful people.”

This tries for a similar tone, but you’ll notice it’s not what you can really call self-deprecating. He tries for that next:

“Now, I didn’t really know this next song growing up in the glittering cultural mecca of Corpus Christi, Texas. I was a nerdy kid -awkward, and, god, so shy. For years, everywhere I went I was always looking down. My mom would say, Look up, Jeremy, just look up!” And then one day I found myself on a stage, where suddenly, the fear was gone. I could be whoever I wanted to be. I could finally look up, into all your eyes out there in the dark,and make a connection.”

That line has “glittering cultural mecca” is probably meant to be sarcastic, but in truth Corpus Christi, a coastal city nicknamed Sparkling City by the City, is said to have a vibrant Latino arts scene. In any case, one might find it difficult to discern the shy, nerdy child in the suave adult with the chiseled leading man looks. In fact, if you dig up his biography, he did not have an easy childhood, but he doesn’t seem as comfortable sharing the details. He seems a more private person.

I bring this up, because Groff’s identity as a naïve gay kid from Amish country –  his open, playful embrace of that background, our knowledge of that identity – apparently put his performance as the sophisticated nightclub crooner Bobby Darin in air quotes for me.  He was never just Bobby Darin; he was Groff in a cosplay.

Jordan more fully merges into the role.  The problem for me is, as I wrote in my original review, Bobby Darin  frankly does not strike me as having either the endurance in the culture or a uniquely compelling enough story to be the most obvious figure to build a Broadway show around.   Without the distance provided by an implicit modern-day overlay, “Just in Time” becomes little more than a fairly standard show biz story threading through a polished nightclub act that traps us in an era that other theatergoers may be more eager to visit than I am.