‘BOOP! The Musical’ Villain Erich Bergen Just Wants to Entertain

BOOP! The Musical is many stuff: a romantic comedy, a feminist manifesto, a sci-fi adventure thru time and area, and an over-the-top sensory enjoy (every week after seeing it, I’m nonetheless digging shiny purple confetti out of my handbag). Erich Bergen couldn’t fairly make sense of all of it when he first heard the idea. “Obviously, Betty Boop is as iconic as grilled cheese, the ultimate Americana,” the actor tells W in a while prior to certainly one of his performances because the Broadway display’s vile but charismatic villain. “But I didn’t understand why anyone would want to see a Betty Boop show.”

It didn’t take the 39-year-old, whose intensive theater credit come with Jersey Boys, Chicago, and Waitress, too lengthy to return round. (You could have additionally noticed him on TV presentations like Gossip Girl and Desperate Housewives). A local New Yorker raised on ’80s pop track—and subsequently a lifelong fan of Grammy-winning manufacturer David Foster, who wrote the track for BOOP!—Bergen was once bought after seeing an trade preview of the display. The manufacturing comes to a Barbie-esque plot the place Betty (performed via powerhouse Jasmine Amy Rogers) leaves black-and-white cool animated film land for technicolor, modern day New York City. She befriends a tender girl (a stellar Angelica Hale), falls in love, and learns that society has best quite advanced from the hyper-misogynistic 1920s international from which she emerged.

Bergen performs Raymond, a lecherous flesh presser who latches onto Betty for private acquire, first as a pawn in his marketing campaign for mayor, and later when he makes a cross at her in his place of work. In vintage cool animated film taste, Betty knocks him out chilly via hitting him over the top with a lamp. It’s a cathartic second within the display’s humorous 2d act, person who Bergen credit because the crux of why this actual tap-dance-filled musical is touchdown so neatly with audiences presently. “When Betty knocks me out with a lamp, it’s exactly what the audience was hoping she would do,” he says.

During a stacked Broadway season that incorporates a few of Hollywood’s greatest names, BOOP! stands proud as natural, unadulterated amusing. It is helping that there’s a Tony-winning staff in the back of it, together with choreography via Jerry Mitchell, lyrics via Susan Birkenhead, and a ebook via Bob Martin. But Bergen thinks there’s an excellent more effective reason why for the display’s luck. “A lot of people have called our show fluff, but some of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in my life involve eating cotton candy on a roller coaster,” he says. “That’s where memories are made.”

Below, the actor and manufacturer, who says he has observed each and every Broadway display since 1996, stocks why he thinks BOOP! is this sort of hit and his hopes for the way forward for the theater trade:

You to start with didn’t see your self within the function of Raymond. Why?

I by no means see myself in roles that I finally end up enjoying. When I used to be 19 years outdated, I went to look Jersey Boys on Broadway prior to it was this sort of giant sensation. I introduced my dad, and halfway during the display, he pointed to Bob Gaudio and stated, ‘That’d be a great role for you.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” At that age, I saw my six-foot-three height as a burden, because I was tall, skinny, and lanky. But six months later, I got cast in the national tour and ended up playing that role in Clint Eastwood’s movie. I’d be my very own worst agent.

As Raymond, you might have some of the funniest numbers within the display. What was once your option to enjoying him?

As an actor, I’m very assured on level. But in relation to comedy, should you’re too assured, you’ll have a tendency to ham it up and do an excessive amount of. When the target market is approving of what you do, you get hooked on the laughter, and also you attempt to move after any other snicker. I discovered that every one of Raymond’s perfect laughs have been at the web page. I didn’t must paintings that onerous. So, I attempted to self-edit and convey my herbal self to what was once already written. People truly come to look Betty Boop. Anything I do as Raymond isn’t humorous with out Betty’s reactions.

What’s it like enjoying the villain in a display about feminine empowerment?

It’s truly onerous as a result of that is delicate subject matter. It’s no longer one thing to funny story about. It’s a tightrope. I need to be gross and off-putting, however I nonetheless must ship a truly just right music. If the target market hates me too a lot, they are no longer going to snicker. Raymond can’t simply be “ew” in passing. He needs to be gross in some way that’s acquainted: “I know this guy. I’ve worked with this guy.” It’s very, very onerous to do, particularly on this local weather, and I don’t all the time nail it. When Betty is speaking about girls getting paid much less in New York City, it’s an excessively empowering scene. Some nights, it will get applause, some nights it will get cheers, and a few nights, there’s no response in any respect. So we’ve this dialog with the target market each and every unmarried night time.

Why do you assume the display is resonating with audiences the best way it’s? It’s a really perfect display for households, but it surely’s additionally gaining one of those cult standing a few of the ladies and the gays.

One, we’ve no longer observed a efficiency like Jasmine’s in eons. It’s a type of issues the place the target market goes so to say, “I saw her when.” I do know each and every Broadway display, each and every efficiency. I’ve by no means observed one like this. The more thing is, Betty Boop is an emblem. She method various things to other other people. So our skill to ship on that and provides each and every unmarried particular person what they’re on the lookout for and extra is a part of it. I wholeheartedly consider within the energy of leisure. There’s quite a lot of darkish stuff available in the market. This is the antidote to that.

Broadway is having a buzzy second presently, with such a lot of giant stars solid in presentations. As a manufacturer and an actor, what do you are making of that?

The trade is in flux, together with TV and picture. We haven’t discovered the brand new norm, however everybody’s nonetheless simply looking to pay their loan. Last month in New York, you should move see Jake Gyllenhaal, Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal, and George Clooney on level—all of those giant Hollywood names. It’s very thrilling in a single regard, and there’s room for everybody. But one thing about $900 to move see Othello turns out unsuitable to me. As a manufacturer, I perceive cash and dynamic pricing, and I utterly get it. But I’m terrified of what the result ultimately is. Theater is an artwork shape like another; it’s no longer supposed to be a circus enchantment. On the sure aspect, how glorious for New York City theater, after what we’ve been thru with the pandemic. So I’m additionally fairly thankful to these names for coming in and bringing other people again to the theater.

What’s subsequent for you?

I’m the manager manufacturer of my first ever community tv particular on NBC: Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute. It’s Chelsea Handler, Nikki Glaser, Patton Oswald, and these kind of superb other people paying tribute to Joan, co-created together with her daughter Melissa. I’m truly serious about that. I like growing leisure, whether or not I’m behind-the-scenes or in entrance of the digicam. I like placing on a display, so long as I will be concerned come what may. I’ll promote t-shirts. I do not care. I simply need to be part of it.