THEATRE REVIEW: BOOP! The Musical

Am I On Drugs?

Sometimes a musical ends, the audience leaps to their feet, and you are left wondering if you watched the same show. That is how I felt at the end of Boop! The Musical, the most “Straight Down the Middle” musical of the season. There is only one great thing about it: Jasmine Amy Rogers. Everything else gets swallowed up in whatever the f*** is happening in the plot. What starts off as a fun, quirky adventure in Act 1 delves into a random mess in Act 2 that not even a star-making performance can salvage. It is overwhelmingly okay.

The audience was loving every second. That should count for something. I wanted to join in the fun like I did in SMASH. Even when Rogers soars in her Act 2 11-o’clock number, it feels like a trek to get there. It is a testament that good performers can make anything work. The humor is also there, even if surrounded by backdrops that look like AI and add nothing except color for a stage full of dancers. None of this is the performers’ fault (it usually never is), but with what else is being offered on Broadway this season, it is hard to see this show lasting long past its TikTok sound popularity.

In a plot reminiscent of Barbie, Betty Boop seeks to find meaning in her life. When Grampy (a fun Stephen DeRosa) shows her one of his inventions that can take her to another dimension, she eagerly hops in behind his back. Betty enters the world of 2025 NYC. From here, she befriends a cast of forgettable characters who love hanging out in Times Square (sigh). Betty eventually gets found out she has jumped time and dimensions, and eventually has a hand in the NYC Mayoral Race (???).

Silly plots are one thing that I am always down to get behind (again, SMASH). It is another thing to be lazy about it. As mentioned, no one actively hangs out in Times Square. Trisha (played by the just-fine Angelica Hale) is supposed to be Gen Z but written like Gen X. The show leans more into the old-timey, classic Boop! cute humor instead of the themes that it is trying to show off. It is passable, then it keeps going. It might not matter to the average theater-goer looking for a good time, but there are other shows that provide an even better time (Death Becomes Her).

What I also think is worth noting is the “set design”. Similar to last year’s The Wiz, the backdrop looks like AI and makes the space feel cavernous. The space is definitely needed for the ensemble, but there were plenty of times where the cast could have used props as a way to get the same message across in the backdrop. The best-use was only one time and that was the Act 1 closer! The costume design by Gregg Barnes, however, really pulls some of the faults of the other design elements together. Not surprising since these are similar costumes as the great Some Like It Hot! Some of the themes discussed during the Mayoral Race portion of the show did not hit at all. It is so brazen to discuss how poor people should be treated better in this city when a ticket for the show you are preaching from costs between $58-$256. Talk about being out-of-touch!

To be clear, every person in the day-to-day operations of this musical is doing a great job. The energy was great, the jokes were told the way they were written, and the audience was loving it. It is simply a good time for some in the form of an okay musical. Harmless, but Broadway deserves better.