Review: History Theatre’s ‘I Am Betty’ returns to roar (and soothe and crackle)

The lady in red is back, and she’s ready to demurely, if assuredly, defend herself.

Betty Crocker, the corporate avatar created to dish out recipes and encourage the sale of ready-made meals, is onstage again at St. Paul’s History Theatre in “I Am Betty.”

In a pivotal scene, she’s confronted by feminist author Betty Friedan, who wants to know why she is holding women back. The doyenne of domesticity explains that it’s all about women having the opportunity to choose what they do. Facing protests, Betty Crocker, played at this point in the story by a Black woman, further explains that “Black women have been juggling it all for generations. It’s upper-class white ladies who’re just discovering.”

Last year’s premiere of “Betty” was a surprise hit that traced a century’s worth of women’s progress through the General Mills spokesmodel. This year the musical has returned, with Joshua Burniece conducting, to slay.

Composed with deft lyrics by Denise Prosek and a clever book by Cristina Luzárraga, who also contributed lyrics, “Betty” is staged with sure-footed style and blithe panache by Maija Garcia. That confidence means that the action mostly zips along, with storytelling that’s clearer, cleaner and more engaging.

The performances also are more evocative. Jennifer Grimm is a hoot as a stammering, yammering Bing Crosby, and fearless as Friedan. Actually, the nine-member all-female ensemble performs like a seamless band, with each player taking on multiple characters and numbers.

Betty Crocker was created and played by many women, the musical asserts, even with male executives taking credit for women’s work. In the show’s respective two acts, Erin Capello and Lynnea Doublette depict two of the most important female figures in the story: Marjorie Husted, the pioneering and longest-serving Betty who wrote radio scripts for the character and vastly expanded its brand; and Barbara Jo Davis, the first Black woman to lead General Mills’ vaunted test kitchen.

Capello is focused and driven as Marjorie. She finds the character’s hunger and doubts in “Something More,” a song that changes meaning as it moves from the business work realm to love and partnership.

Doublette also is lyrical and strong on “Simmer and Wait,” a duet between Barbara Jo and husband Ken (versatile Tiffany Cooper). Doublette delivers with blessed assurance.

Kiko Laureano is effortless as a Cuban mother who learns English through Betty Crocker, singing “Lo Bueno Con Lo Malo” with energy.

Choreographed by Renee Guittar, the show has two joyous, boogie-woogie numbers, one with the quartet of Laureano, Ruthie Baker, Anna Hashizume and Liv Kemp. Kemp and newcomer Stephanie Cousins also play male executives, sometimes a bit overbroadly.

Garcia has sculpted some evocative stage pictures in a show that cleverly offers a subtle survey of a century’s work of musical styles. The songs, which nod to jazz, rock and R&B (there’s no hip-hop, but, I suppose, we can’t have everything), don’t feel like a facile pastiche. Instead, they push the narrative forward.

In fact, the number “I’m Here,” which serves as the unofficial theme of the musical, is deceptively simple. When ensemble members take turns with lines from that number, they deliver with harmonic, if steely, resolve.

Still, there’s a back to the future quality to “Betty,” and that’s because the story of progress is not a linear one. Lines around, say, Roe v. Wade, in the song “Hurricane” land with raw discomfort. Things that were settled and celebrated are unsettled and upturned.

In “Betty,” gleeful onstage agitation sometimes meets nervous offstage agita as the musical, like the idea behind it, continues to grow in a changing world.

When: Through Dec. 29.

Where: History Theatre, 30 E. 10th St., St. Paul.

Tickets: $30-$82. 651-292-4323 or historytheatre.com.