Broadway review by Adam Feldman
Try to imagine this: a family Broadway musical based on a beloved cartoon character from the great depression. Maybe she has distinctive hair and a signature red dress. Maybe she is trying to discover who she is, so she fled and gets dazzled by the lively lights and the bustle of New York. His best friends could be, I don’t know, a dog and an orphan. And it may seem crazy, but: what happens if his sun and optimism can have the power to inspire progressive political change?
It would never work. I’m kidding, I’m kidding! It worked like the Dickens in the 1977 Moppet musical AnnieAnd it works again – Minus AnnieS more Dickensian elements – in Boop! Made and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, it is an old -fashioned candy shop, where delicious confectionery are sold in bulk. When Boop! is cheesy, it’s candy corn. Throat on multicolored eraser eraser from its high -energy production numbers; Chew the frost grains of its social sweetness; Leave the caramel creams of its love story to melt slightly in your mouth. And above all, savor the red cinnamon heart of this show: Jasmine Amy Rogers, making a sensational beginning of Broadway as the animation icon of the 1930s, Betty Boop.
Boop! Musical comedy | Photography: thanks to Evan Zimmerman
In our world, Betty is the cartoon baby jazz baby baby, a Fleischer studios Flapper inspired by the singer Helen Kane (famous for her signature tag “Boop-Ooop-A-Doop” in songs like “I Wanna Be Love by you”) and the most definitive by Mae than Queel. Its look is instantly recognizable: giant head, spitting hair, large eyes and lips staggered by bees that hover over a leakage chin, all balanced on a mini-meter body drawn for sin. In his own world, as imagined in Boop!Betty is the film film with a black and white toon dimension that is frozen in time and revolves around her. But although she can play any role, from Cowgirl to Aviatrix, she suffers from what a sad lady Folies calls “The curse of versatility”; When a journalist asks him, “Who are you really?” She has no answer.
What she has is an easyly deceived easy chair invented by her wacky Grampy (a lively and animated Stephen Derosa, a “trans-dimensional tempus locus acting on electro-ambulator” which transports it to the real world of the city of modern New York with three dimensions. Until this point, all the production conspired to exist in black and white, thanks to the delicious creativity and the coordination of the creator and From sets David Rockwell, the costumer Gregg Barnes and the lighting designer Philip S. Rosenberg. not.)
Boop! Musical comedy | Photography: thanks to Evan Zimmerman
Luckily, Betty landed at Comic Con, where she integrates and meets the most non-threatening imaginable, Dwayne (Ainsley Melham), a musician and Manny Retro-Jazz who is there with his teenage charge, Trisha (Angelica Hale). Trisha is already a big fan of Betty, and Dwayne soon falls under her too; She loves her in return because she is new in color and impressed by her blue eyes. (I will not say to Toni Morrison if you don’t.) Dwayne works for the aunt Carol de Trisha (Anastacia McCleskey), who in turn works for a candidate for the shady town hall (Erich Bergen, in a funny Arnett Lissement mode), and Betty mixes.
What is happening next is the intrigue, and it doesn’t matter much. Bob Martin’s script treats the source material with affection and a key of knowledge distance. (He co-written The Somnolate Riding HoodHe therefore knows his way around this tone.) The “real” world of this show is not much less caricatured than that of Fleischer that Betty leaves with her demanding director (Aubie Merrylees) and his darling darling, Pudgy (a soft puppet worked by Phillip Huber). The whole thing is an opportunity for the shoes and the walks backwards – with the music of the Hitmaker Pop David Foster and the words of Susan Birkenhead, who broadcast the words in Jelly’s latest jam—And, above all, for massive dance numbers.
Boop! Musical comedy | Photography: Gracieuse of Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Mitchell was a star dancer in the fascinating production of Tommy Tune de Broadway from The Follies of Will RogersAnd he wears this chosen Boop! But this is not that the end of the influences of this production. It is Annie everywhere, of course, but it also has elements of Barbie And Return to the future And Who framed Roger Rabbit And, from Broadway, City of Angels And Bedside and other musicals. When tHe always welcomes Faith Prince, as an old girlfriend from Grampy, sings how love makes her sick, it’s a nice reminder for “Adelaide’s Lament”, his great song in the 1992 revival of 1992 Guy and dolls.
But if Boop!Like the 2013 Mitchell 2013 Bootslooks like a synthesis of many other programs, it is also, as Bootsfulfills this synthesis well. This musical will not change your brain in any way, but it offers what it promises: a great production of Broadway which leaves you smiling, and a star artist with balance, charm and chops to make you believe that what the world now needs, all things, a little more Betty Boop. It can be real or not, but what pleasure it is fun to escape for a certain time in the alternative dimension of Jasmine Amy Rogers Follies.
Boop! The musical. Broadhurst Theater (Broadway)). Music by David Foster. Words by Susan Birkenhead. Bob Martin’s book. Directed by Jerry Mitchell. With Jasmine Amy Rogers, Ainsley Melham, Stephen Derosa, Faith Prince, Erich Bergen, Angelica Hale, Anastacia McCleskey, Aubie Merrylees, Ricky Schroeder, Phillip Huber. Operating time: 2 hours 30 minutes. A intermission.
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Boop! Musical comedy | Photography: Gracieuse of Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
