NY Theater – Fall ’26

The Rocky Horror Show The songs are nonpareil, the story a hoot, and the stagecraft added a dimension a film couldn’t match. The singers were all brilliant, and Lorna Courtney’s Janet was mesmerizing. The message–”Don’t dream it – Be it” (spelled out in neon letters)–remains powerful. The audience call-backs were occasionally fun but more often distracting, and I could have done without Frank-N-Furter’s wig, which made him more repulsive than seductive. Amber Grey’s Riff Raff was also several steps down from Richard O’Brien. But the cast, the audience and I all had a great time.  A

Just In Time  I didn’t like Bobby Darin going in, and after seeing Just In Time liked him less. Act One was fun, with music and memories, engaging backups and dancers, and the story of Darin’s ascent to commercial success. Act Two was a downer and a dud. There was nothing new from the backups and dancers, Sandra Dee was no match for Connie Francis, the music was derivative and trite, and Darin’s self-obsession and cruelty to others made him an unsympathetic self-pitier as his life fell apart. Sensing the audiences’s emerging depression, the show contrived a boffo revival performance at the Copa, but it was hardly Queen at Wembley. The play used up my favorite Darin number, the unoriginal “Beyond the Sea,” at the outset, leaving few musical highlights as Darin, an okay but uninspiring Jeremy Jordan, sloughed from so-so rocker to faux Sinatra. The best musical moment by far was Ariana Madix singing “Who’s Sorry Now?”  B-

PS: I understand the drive for inclusive, color-blind casting, but having a large Black man play Murray the K did nothing for the play, especially when every other role was typecast with a reasonable lookalike, from Darin and Sandra Dee to brother-in-law Charley Maffia.