By Matthew Wexler
Betty Boop has returned to claim the spotlight in retrofitted packaging that Broadway producers hope will appeal to family-friendly crowds. Never mind that despite her now modern sensibilities, BOOP! The Musical‘s creators still find it necessary to [Spoiler Alert but not really] marry her off.
Betty Boop (an effervescent Jasmine Amy Rogers), tired of being objectified in the black-and-white, two-dimensional world of animated shorts, straps into Grampy’s (Stephen DeRosa) time-traveling armchair, and lands at Comic Con, where she meets teen superfan Trisha (Angelica Hale) and her babysitter-chaperone Dwayne (Ainsley Melham), who becomes an obligatory love interest.
Thin subplots involve a corrupt mayoral candidate (Erich Bergen) for whom Trisha’s aunt and guardian (Anastacia McCleskey) works, and antics from Betty’s film director (Aubie Merrylees), who desperately wants her to return to the past to resume filming.
But who is Betty Boop? Therein lies the rub. The $26 million experiment (the reported capitalization for the production) hopes that somebody—anybody—latches onto the beloved character that has been part of the cultural zeitgeist since 1930. But with few stakes to hold one’s attention, BOOP! The Musical plays about as nuanced as the name implies.
That’s not to say it isn’t a fun evening, primarily thanks to Rogers’ spirited charm, which captures the early cartoons’ style, and David Foster’s Jazz-era score. Greg Barnes’ costumes and David Rockwell’s scenic designs pivot playfully between the mundane past and Technicolor present, though Bob Martin (pulling double-duty this season, also writing the book for Smash) does little to convince us that things have gotten much better since Betty was chased around a table by her boss. Now it’s a politician, go figure.
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1MC Takeaway
A decades-long controversy has persisted regarding the original inspiration behind Betty Boop. Some say it was Black jazz singer Esther Lee Jones (“Baby Esther”), though Fleischer Studios, which developed the character, denies the claim. Helen Kane, another jazz performer of the era, sued the studio (and later dropped the case), claiming an artistic connection to the character. While not the musical director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell set out to create, Betty Boop’s real-life origin story might be one worthy of Jasmine Amy Rogers’ talent.
BOOP! The Musical plays at the Broadhurst Theatre.
