After the high heels of the successful film in 2023 “Barbie”, “Boop! The Musical” also aims to redo and rename another pop character dated for contemporary times and audiences.
Unlike Barbie, who has an omnipresent cultural presence for decades, Betty Boop is a cartoon character from the era of depression of a valve of the age of jazz, and apparently, attitude and style, she is of her time – not to say dimension.
It was created by men and animated by their fantasies, a slightly surreal character, with an oversized babydoll, a head, lips stated of bees, a curved body and a cute voice with the shy slogan “boop-oop-a-doop”. Many now know her as a camp curiosity or, more likely, this Macy’s parade balloon.
Like “Barbie”, “Boop!” Continues on a double reality transformation trip, and along the way has an optimistic score, formidable dance numbers and delicious creations. Sometimes that is enough, at least for consumer entertainment with assault themes, intended for family markets and with great commodity potential. Other times, it looks like an imitation.
Bob Martin’s book travels between cartoon World by Betty and the True – or at least the world of musical (which is not so real anyway). But Martin’s script has little spirit and originality that propelled his clash of Worlds scripts for “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “The Prom”. His book “Boop” only provokes the great occasional laughter, in the middle of winks, puns and folderol.
He certainly had his work cut for him. Betty is a character without many characters, or you could say too many characters – something to whom Barbie can tell. The multitude of Betty hazelnut roles during its decade peak is intelligently addressed head -on in an eye -catching opening number in the world of fully black and white animated drawings and Lingo of the Fleischer studios of the 1930s. (David Rockwell’s retro drawings are quite Niftys.)
Betty (Jasmine Amy Rogers, making a shattering Broadway arc) that of the number for her latest animated short film when she goes comically from one personality to another: it’s a cowgirl! A pilot! A girl who pushes wolves! But later, when a journalist asks: “Who is the real Betty Boop?”, His lukewarm response – “Whoever you wanted to be” – sends Betty in a funk, if not an existential crisis. Shaken and tired of the grind showbiz of the fun factory, she needs a break.
In Cartoonland, everything is possible – and absurd. A gizmo of interdimensional teleportation, invented by its eccentric co-star Grampy (Stephen Derosa), sends Betty in the vibrant world of the colors of Manhattan 2025 where she landed in a Comic Con Convention, with her cosplay crowd. Setting up, she became friends by Trisha (Angelica Hale), a teenager Betty Boop Super-Fan.
At the beginning, everything is confusing for Betty, then wonderful as she adopts her colorful environment, her new friend and a potential love interest in Trisha’s brother, a jazz musician named Dwayne (Ainsley Melham).
Meanwhile, Toontown is panicked in the disappearance of its star attraction. Grampy and Poch Pudgy (a wonderful puppet, controlled by Philip Huber) are transported to the New York gift to bring it back.
The alternating worlds are supposed to be fun, but Toontown is particularly exhausting quickly, with aggressive characters, clowning and amplifying each soft punchline. But the real world is not much more subtle, limiting the emotional weight that the spectacle could have.
There is also a disposable intrigue with Grampy bringing together Valentina (Faith Prince), an astrophysicist with whom he met and fell in love during a tele-traveler a long time ago. Then there is the aunt of Trish Carol (Anastacia McCleskey), who is the director of the town hall campaign for Raymond Demorest (Erich Bergen), a Sleaze that spreads there on Betty’s popularity once her identity was revealed.
Will Aunt Carol supplant Raymond as a candidate? Will Trish go to the art school and Dwanye will get a regular concert in a nightclub? Will Betty return to Toontown? His interest in one of these responses depends on tolerance to corn and patience to musical figures.
It was at this moment that Jerry Mitchell’s choreography comes into play with the whole at the top, the shape of Tip-Tap. The score – with David Foster music and arrangements, words by Susan Birkenhead and Doug Besterman’s orchestrations – is melodious, sparkling and fun.
Rogers is a delicious incarnation of Betty, an animated cartoon which she is just quite human with warmth, vulnerability and picking. (Credit also goes to the SHABANA MAJEED SPIT-CUR-CUR wigs and the hair design, Michael Clifton makeup and Gregg Barnes costumes.)
The adorable real world of Melham, Dwayne, can be as two -dimensional as Betty, but at least he can show a splendid voice and elegant dance movements in “She Knocks Me Out” and shares with Betty the song with direct elimination “Why Look Auth The Corner” and the number of hot kiosk “where I Wanna Be”.
The character of Prince is nebulous but at least she raises a few songs. Bergen (“Madame Secretary” of TV is a hoe as a variation of men drools from Betty’s cartoons. As Trish, Hale, 17 years old (“America’s Got Talent” finalist) is a dynamo with impressive notes of power – although sometimes too powerful too much. In a little role, Morgan McGhee gives great laughs with her newspaper like a newspaper.
“Boop!” shows that caricatures can be an attractive novelty, but to really succeed, it must first be well drawn.
