![]() ![]() The scenes that work, and work they surely do, are the ones where Mitchell works his signature magic: the romantic moments Betty befriending of one of her fans, Taylor Swift style the homages to New York City’s chaotic brand of beauty the celebration of inclusive love. Instead, a self-actualizing Betty gets involved first with a bad mayoral candidate (he’s a sanitation guy, precipitating the kind of gags that could not be a worse match for the otherwise classy gestalt of the show) and then his morally superior campaign manager, who takes over - but Betty never spends any meaningful time with her so her endorsement doesn’t really track. Given the talent of the performers playing the lovers and Mitchell’s peerless skills with theatrical romance, there’s much too little stage time devoted to that story. That’s a very clever, if overly rushed, scene and a perfect match for Foster’s lush and formidably orchestrated score. Much of what then happens in modern-day New York is hugely enjoyable to watch, with lots of stranger-in-a-strange-land fun from Martin, especially when Dwayne and Betty head to a downtown club where Betty reveals her true jazz-age self. Stephen DeRosa (as Grampy), Jasmine Amy Rogers (Betty Boop) and Phillip Huber (Pudgy) in "Boop! The Musical" at the CIBC Theatre in Chicago. Rosenberg) and the sound (Gareth Owen) are top-drawer the sound contrast with some other shows in town is palpable. ![]() Gregg Barnes’ costumes are a blast and both the lighting (from Philip S. From there, we go with Betty to color and the present day and it would be far better to snap into the new reality the current gradual transition ruins the potential surprise baked into a very appealing scenic design from David Rockwell. That first section is played far too fast (true of much of the show, really) and fails to really establish Betty’s wants, needs and cartoon soul. The show begins in black-and-white in the 1930s and I could not for the life of me understand why the behind-the-camera characters spoke flatly like they were in a Betty Boop cartoon, not making them it would be far better for the show if they were honest creatures of their era, which would be contrast enough. Prince, as you’d expect, is both enigmatic and funny, where and when the material allows, but her role and that entire plot B just fizzles out emotionally. Grampy gets few laughs and DeRosa, a respected talent, seems trapped in a comedic conception that is just not working. Job One here is to bring the supporting comedic characters up to the leading lady’s level of truthful material, especially the crucial Grampy (Stephen DeRosa), who seems to be in a whole different musical from Betty as he falls in love with the modern world’s Valentina (Faith Prince, no less). Betty is so empathetic and intriguing that whenever she leaves the stage, things just start to sag. Trisha’s mom, Carol (Anastacia McCleskey), works for Raymond (Erich Bergen), a sleazy pol running for mayor.įollowing its out-of-town tryout in San Francisco, “Wicked” famously pared back all of the scenes that did not involve the two central women and “Boop!” should take a leaf out of that successful playbook. Thanks to a time machine built by her frequent co-star Grampy, she finds herself in 2023 New York City, first at Comic Con (where a cartoon character should be able to fit in) and then all over Manhattan, befriending Trisha, a needy teenage superfan (played by the charming 16-year-old Angelica Hale) and falling in love with Dwayne (Ainsley Anthony Melham) and even getting involved with politics. In a book that nods to “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” “Back to the Future” and “Barbie,” he posits that Betty has become bored with the day-to-day grind of the film studio and desires a vacation. Given that Betty Boop appeared only in Max Fleischer film shorts and was at her peak in the 1930s - a decade when she starred as everything from a trapeze artist to Snow White to the owner of a traveling medicine show - she offered a relatively blank slate for Martin. ![]() Mitchell is a talent scout of formidable skill and Rogers is a discovery neither he or Broadway will soon forget. Rogers, though, already is the complete Broadway package: a stellar vocalist for the lush score by David Foster and Susan Birkenhead, a subtle comedic natural when it comes to Bob Martin’s book and, above all, a warm-centered and vulnerable performer who humanizes the central character in a show that has yet to surround her with sufficient truth for this director and choreographer’s signature emotional trajectory to achieve all it could.
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