Boop! and Smash reviews

Jasmine Amy Rogers in Boop! (MatthewMurphy and Evan Zimmerman©)

Canadian scribe Bob Martin seems an unlikely candidate to have two musicals premiering on Broadway in the same month. Then again, his penchant for gently quirky, character-based comedy looks like something the Great White Way could use right now. But neither Boop! The Musical nor Smash seems destined for a long Broadway run, in part because the stories they tell aren't very enticing.

Martin, who shared a Tony Award with Don McKellar for the book of The Drowsy Chaperone in 2006, has the unenviable task of trying to conjure up a coherent story for sexy cartoon character Betty Boop. Her animated shorts were a hit with Depression-era moviegoers, and today she's apparently recognized as a feminist icon by some, but this Broadway musical isn't the best venture with which to revive her.  

That's not to take anything away from Jasmine Amy Rogers, who delivers a dynamic performance as Betty, or 17-year-old Angelica Hale as a present-day teenage girl obsessed with the character who meets her idol at New York Comic Con. Her powerful voice could stop many a show.

But the actresses are sidelined by sketchy material that never fully colors in its characters. Restless in her black-and-white cartoon world, Betty leaves it behind to not only time-travel (via her grandfather's contraption) but change dimensions too. As she learns what it is to be human, she strives to make the world a better place by inspiring the people around her. 

The highlight is easily the second-act opening number, "Where Is Betty?" which features the ensemble dressed half in black-and-white attire and half in full color, singing and dancing as they tread back and forth between Betty's present and her cartoon past. Otherwise, it's hard to get too wrapped up in Boop! because even though these are three-dimensional characters, they come across as cartoons. Jerry Mitchell's direction, David Foster's music and Susan Birkenhead's lyrics get the job done but with little excitement.

Megan Kane, Ashmanskas, Hurder, Nielsen, Rodriguez and Behlmann in Smash (Matthew Murphy)

Smash, at least, has a coherent story and a better score. But it faces director Susan Stroman's production faces the same problem as the NBC TV series on which it's based: an unsatisfying, overwrought plot relieved by a splendid array of musical numbers as cast and creatives struggle to bring a show about Marilyn Monroe to Broadway.

They have a terrific, triple-threat leading lady in Robyn Hurder, who plays Ivy Lynn, a Broadway star rehearsing to play Marilyn Monroe in a new musical called Bombshell. All seems to be going well until she reads a book about the tragic movie star and suddenly turns into a Method actor to the extreme, abetted by acting coach Susan Proctor (Kristine Nielsen). 

Soon, Ivy is demanding that everyone refer to her as Marilyn and becoming an all-around difficult diva. She wants the show rewritten, much to the dismay of the director, Nigel (Brooks Ashmanskas), and creators, married couple Jerry and Tracy (John Behlmann and Krysta Rodriguez), who hoped to tell a happy, upbeat story about Marilyn's life. Why they thought it would be possible to do that for a woman who died by suicide at age 36 isn't explained?

After setting up Ivy as the main character, the show takes a detour, and things start to fall apart both for Bombshell and Smash. Producer Anita (Jacqueline B. Arnold), attuned to the social media buzz, contemplates replacing her with candidates such as understudy Karen (Caroline Bowman) or assistant director Chloe (Bella Coppola). Is social media really that powerful? 

The best parts of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's score, much of it songs originally written for the TV series, are numbers from the show-within-the-show, including "Let Me Be Your Star" and "Let's Be Bad," which was already repurposed for their Some Like It Hot musical. 

Book writers Martin and Rick Elice have concocted a story with some hardy laughs but too many partially developed characters. Writing about issues like whether an actress who does not have Marilyn's svelte body should have a shot at playing her isn't a substitute for creating well-crafted people audiences are interested in.