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Beyond the iconography you might have seen on a lunchbox or keychain, what do you really know?
But lore-wise, beyond that, theres not much else most of us know about Betty.
Bettys stuck in the kind of Xerox-copied omnipresence, everywhere but only in a shallow sense.
For the next few scenes of Martins book, thats the case.
Carol, for instance, used to have a Betty Boop lunchbox.
Trisha points out that shes not just a drawing.
In her New York, everyone, including news reporters, is desperate for a glimpse of Betty.
It doesnt have time to beJellys Last Jam.
Shed really prefer not to be the object of a chase but maybe the one doing it.
That gets transmuted into a rote kind of love story.
That they never settled on a concrete noun is telling.
Unsteadiness in premise can be covered for by verve of execution, whichBoop!does find here and there.
Bettys dog Pudgy is lovingly puppeteered with bits of string.
The lack of coherence in premise matches a lack of coherence aesthetically.
But the visible reasoning here is that of cost savings.
The screens show up everywhere, in every reality, and they drain the energy from the stage.
I wish, after seeing this musical, I were closer to identifying why.
Boop!is at the Broadhurst Theatre.
