Friday, December 08, 2023
‘Boop!’ review: Betty’s gorgeous musical builds a colorful, tuneful, graceful world for cartoon heroine
Chicago Sun-Times: Think the Nicholas Brothers meet the Ziegfeld Follies meet the Rockettes and you get an idea of extraordinary athleticism, precision, grace and sheer show-stoppery Mitchell puts on stage.
But while “Boop!” looks and sounds terrific, the plot purportedly driving the show is an overstuffed mess that defies logic, even for a story about a cartoon. It also treats its supporting characters like afterthoughts, which makes the subplots forgettable at best, laborious more often.
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I have been so excited for reviews of this show to hit. I have actually been familiar with this musical since the seventh grade, when I found a piece of music from this score and I sang it for an audition. The music was incredible but I had never heard of a production of Boop! Now, 6 years later I am so excited that it is finally getting recognition and making its way into the mainstream. In the past couple of weeks I've been seeing clips from the curtain call on my social media and it looks absolutely fantastic. From the beautiful custom shoes to the bright, colorful, yet still cohesive color palette this show looks absolutely stunning. I am sad to hear that the plot is a little iffy. This show seems very much like one of the shows for the family. A very spectacle-based show, which doesn’t mean its bad, but it certainly does its job being pretty.
I have heard so much about this musical and I am so excited to read more reviews about it and possibly watch it in the future. What I absolutely love about this musical is that the lead actress playing Betty Boop is a person of color. I’ve talked about this in other comments I’ve written for production science, but I just feel as though there isn't enough representation of people of color actors and actresses, so I really appreciate the fact that there is an effort for racial inclusion. I also absolutely adore that they stayed true to the original story and replicated a black and white set and costumes. This totally reminded me of when my high school did Wizard of Oz my senior year, and whenever Dorothy was in kansas. The set and costumes were in a sepia color, similar to the original film, and when the tornado happens, we are set in a large set of munchkin land in color.
I heard that this was being turned into a musical a few years ago and had mixed feelings about it but did not give it much thought as nowhere I knew was going to be producing it. Other than that I did not know much about it. Then many months ago I read that it was being produced and was really not sure how I felt about it. Turning a musical into a cartoon? Seriously can we please start writing new meaningful shows instead of taking old ideas and adding pointless music. (As I am sure you can tell I am not really a fan of turning movies/tv/books/cartoons into musicals, to be honest I am not really a fan of turning anything but new ideas into musicals) I enjoy movies for what they are and musicals for what they are, there's no reason to have two. On a different note, I have looked into Betty Boop the musical and it does seem like it might be a decent show. I like the fact that it seems to have gone back to musical roots and has more golden age style themes especially with the dancing. While I like some pop-rock contemporary musicals and can appreciate them, I truly love many of the more golden age classic musicals. I will be interested to see Betty Boop as I still have mixed feelings about it and would love the opportunity to see it.
I honestly do not know anything about this musical. The only I time I’ve heard it mentioned was an off-hand comment about the fact that a Betty Boop musical was being created. I also really do not know much about Betty Boop or Betty Boop lore in general, so I was definitely curious to discover how they planned to turn it into a musical. This particular review was definitely not entirely positive, but I always feel like nearly every review of most big notable intended to be commercial musicals can basically just be boiled down to “it looked awesome but the plot was dull and sucked.” I feel like, for Boop! in particular, it only makes sense for the plot to be somewhat straightforward and a little silly, stupid, and fun. I don’t think it’s fair to disregard the show for a dull plot when the show centers around a classic cartoon character. It’s going to be a little silly and fun, and I think it’s important to find the enjoyment in the “bad” parts of that.
This was such an interesting read. I wonder what spurred the idea of a Betty Boop musical, it’s always interesting to learn the backstories behind why writers/creators made the decisions they did and came up with their inspiration. The idea sounds really fun, though the author seemed a bit hesitant. The plot seems like a mix of the recent barbie movie with (as the article mentioned) back to the future parts as well? I wonder what the musical numbers are like, and what they concern. Especially after playground, I am even more aware of how you can write about so so many different topics when creating a show, daunting but super exiting! I wonder if there were multiple collaborators on the script of this production, or was mainly one creator. All of the images from the show were quite gorgeous as well, and the aesthetics look really cool - its fun to see how they brought a cartoon to life.
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