By Lucy Komisar
The best thing about this play is Jasmine Amy Rogers’ star quality debut on Broadway as Betty Boop. The next best is the 17-year-old ingenue Angelica Hale as Trisha, a fanatic Boop fan. Rogers and Hale both have powerful voices and presence. Rogers’ is chirpy in a good way, which goes along with her New York accent.
And there’s lively tap and jazz dancing choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, also director. Ainsley Melham, a charmer as Dwayne, who takes a hankering after Betty, is good on his feet and with a jazz trumpet. The jazz dancers are a delight.
Plus kudos to costume designer Gregg Barnes who put the tap dancers in glittery tuxes and top hats and cleverly outfits a line of actors in costumes that are black & white on one side and color when they turn. Because this is a time travel play and Betty Boop existed before technicolor.
For the most part, forget the silly story. (“Boop! The Musical” has a book by Bob Martin, Music by David Foster and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead.) Only about 15 minutes of the two-hour show has a script that makes the depiction of Betty Boop as a smart, independent, read feminist woman, real. And skewers a New York mayoral hopeful (a very funny Erich Bergen) as a sleaze who takes bribes. (Sound familiar?)
The gimmick is that she is tired of the short films in which her cartoon character is chased by men. Grampy (Stephen DeRosa) uses a Rube Goldberg machine to send her to the future, which is 2025. She ends up at a New York Comecon where she is thrilled by the colors. (But the lyrics are stupid.)
Meanwhile, back 100 years ago the spastic director (Aubie Merrylees) is screeching that Boop hasn’t shown up on the set.
While in today’s New York, Raymond Demarest (Bergen) has dragooned Betty into going with him on campaign stops to get press attention. She finally rebels against being all face and no words. She has something to say: poverty, Bezos. It’s the only time the script gets interesting.
Demarest’s “Flying High Movin’ Up Like the Dow, Wow. / We Put This Town in Our Pockets, for Beginners” gets a laugh. His strutting is perfect
Boop discovers he’s a crook, taking money to approve siting a power plant. It’s pay to play. And his cousin is the police commissioner. (Remind you of anyone?)
When Boop tells all that to Carol (Anastacia McCleskey), Demarest’s loyal but put-upon campaign manager, Carol decides to run herself. There’s a cameo by a female TV anchor Cheryl King (Morgan McGhee) who is introducing the story when she is put down by the male street reporter (Christian Probst), who says he will do it himself. She magically appears on camera on site.
Trisha, who is Carol’s niece, wears clothes adorned with Boop’s face. But feminism, “be your own self,” will affect her too. The feminist and political parts of the play are scattershot. A story line built more around them would have given this play more punch.
“Boop! The Musical,” Book by Bob Martin, music by David Foster and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, based on characters created by Max Fleischer. Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th St, NYC. Runtime 2 hours. Opened April 5, 2025. Open run.