Bobby Darin makes splash again

Spoleto 2010 News, stories and reviews

When Joe Clarke as Bobby Darin belted out "Beyond the Sea," I was once again 15 and dancing in someone's living room.

This is a scenario may have flashed through the minds of a number of those who saw the production of "Splish Splash: The Short and Spectacular Life of Bobby Darin" written by Keely Enright and produced at the Village Playhouse as part of Piccolo Spoleto.

Even for those too young to remember Darin, Clarke and his co-star Paulette Todd, in the double role of narrator and singer Connie Francis, brought such energy to the show that it also seemed to enthrall the younger audience members.

Each of the more than a dozen songs came off with polish and pizazz. The octet comprised one of the best stage bands I've heard locally and was led by pianist Frank Duvall, who also did the arrangements. Clarke portrayed a terrific and accurate Darin, performing "Mack the Knife" and "Splish Splash," both of which made Darin a legend.

Clarke also showed why the folk-like protest songs, which he switched to in the late 1960s after the death of his idol Robert Kennedy, didn't suit Darin's style.

Todd worked well with Clarke as they sang two duets, she in the role of Darin's true love Connie Francis.

Enright and Dave Reinwald were exceptionally inventive in locating old clips of Darin from television shows and movies —no easy task. The clips were shown on a screen located between two staircases draped in glittering blue cloth.

Julie Ziff, who wasn't credited in the program, designed costumes perfectly, depicting the radical fashion changes from the late '50s to the early '70s.

It would have been fun to have had a few showgirls in the Copacabana numbers, but that's a mere quibble in a first-class evening in Mount Pleasant's packed theater.