Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - April 7, 2025 Boop! The Musical. Book by Bob Martin. Music by David Foster. Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. Music supervision and additional arrangements by Daryl Waters. Scenic design by David Rockwell. Costume design by Gregg Barnes. Lighting design by Philip S. Rosenberg. Sound design by Gareth Owen. Projection design by Finn Ross. Hair and wig design by Sabana Majeed. Make-up design by Michael Clifton. Illusions design by Skylar Fox. Marionette design by The Huber Marionettes. Associate director DB Bonds. Associate choreographer Rachelle Rak. Associate choreographer Jon Rua. Production stage manager Bonnie L. Becker. Orchestrations by Doug Besterman. Music director Rick Fox. Arrangements by David Foster. Dance arrangements by Zane Mark. Music coordinator Michael Aarons.
Let's begin with the wonderful central performance by Jasmine Amy Rogers, making her Broadway debut in the title role of Betty Boop. Yes, that Betty Boop, the animated jazz-age flapper character who never has disappeared from the public eye since she emerged from Max Fleischer's inkwell in 1930. Like Betty herself, Rogers comes off as smart, self-assured and resourceful. Here she is giving a triple-threat performance, acting, singing and dancing with great aplomb and talent galore. She also exudes a look-you-in-the-eye self-confidence that suggests she would be perfectly willing and able to carry the entire show on her back alone in order to make sure that Boop! becomes a popular hit. Fortunately, she has lots of help in that area. We will get to some of the other cast members shortly, but let us begin first with the convoluted premise. With a book by Bob Martin, music by David Foster, and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, Boop! opens in a different dimension than the one we inhabit, a black-and-white world where the laws of science and nature are considerably flexible. In this world (let's call it "Cartoonland"), Betty is Fleischer Studio's popular and successful film star, taking on various roles in the animated Betty Boop series. We first meet her in the opening number that takes place at the studio, where she is filming and switching roles on a moment's notice. She might be a cowgirl at one point, then a circus performer or biplane pilot in the next. Through it all, she is always recognizable, with her perfectly coiffed curly hair, Cupid's bow lips, long lashes, and so forth. But don't be fooled. She's nobody's pushover. She is savvy, fearless, and boldly independent. Villains and handsy men best beware.
By a stroke of good luck, that's just the thing to have handy when Betty, tired of being constantly in the public eye and feeling she is missing something in her life, decides to go AWOL. Before you can say "zap," she is zapped out of "Cartoonland" and into the future (i.e. now), landing most fortuitously at a Comic-Con convention in New York, where she is bedazzled by the bright colors that she has never seen before. And even though she is recognized by Betty Boop fans there, she is able to blend in with the cartoon-costumed crowd while gaining her bearings before her adventure really begins to take off. Up to this point, the journey has been cra-cra in a decidedly good way. The black-and-white design of "Cartoonland" by the team of David Rockwell (set), Gregg Barnes (costumes), and Finn Ross (projections) helps immeasurably to make for a highly original beginning to the show. But the rest of her adventures in contemporary New York are rather more derivative of the real world of musical comedy, from which it borrows copiously. It is here that some potholes start to appear in a series of too many plot elements. In the main storyline, Betty befriends a young woman she meets at Comic-Con named Trisha (Angelica Hale, a lovely singer in her own right but who is stuck here in an underwritten part). She also faces down a sleazy politician (Erich Bergen), aids a community activist (Anastacia McCleskey), and falls in love with a jazz trumpeter named Dwayne (Ainsley Melham). Along the way, she helps everyone she meets (save the politician) find their own voice, which also seems to help her figure out her own place in the grand scheme of things. Surely, that would be enough to fill any plot needs. But wait, folks, there's lots more, including a pair of off-the-wall newscasters (Morgan McGhee and Christian Probst) and Betty's puppy, Pudgy, a marionette (charmingly maneuvered by Phillip Huber) whose purpose would seem merely to be cute. The jazz-and-romance angle gives the show the opportunity for a couple of snazzy songs, including a catchy number called "Why Look Around the Corner," whose performance is enhanced by the appearance of an interactive moon and a bouncing ball highlighting the lyrics the way they used to do to invoke a sing-along at the movies. Admittedly, the romantic angle is problematic, given that Dwayne is flesh and blood and Betty is, despite appearances, a pen-and-ink drawing. That's possibly the biggest pothole here, and while it is acknowledged, it is brushed aside in order to allow the romance to blossom. Probably best not to think too much about it. The brightest spots in the New York scenes are provided by Stephen DeRosa's Grampy, who has jumped dimensions in search of Betty, and most happily by Faith Prince as Grampy's long lost love interest. These two understand and adapt to the wackiness of the situation better than anyone else on stage, and their scenes and two songs together are wonderful reminders of how much fun all of this could be if it had kept everything lighter than air. Even so, the entire evening is lots of fun. Still, someone should have remembered that enough is as good as a feast, even when the feast has so much good stuff to offer.
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