Roll over, Shakespeare, and tell Leonard Bernstein the news: “Romeo and Juliet,” the tragedy that inspired one of musical theater’s greatest works in “West Side Story,” has been adapted again — this time into a jukebox musical with a score assembled for aging millennials and a story directed squarely at Generation Z. The result, I’m duty-bound to report, is not pretty.

“& Juliet” teams Max Martin — the Swedish songwriter and producer responsible, with assorted collaborators, for some of the most high-carb pop of the past 25 years — with the playwright and screenwriter David West Read, best known for his Emmy Award-winning work on “Schitt’s Creek.” As is often the case in these outings, Mr. Read’s libretto serves primarily to thread together the songs, which include hits by Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, and the Weeknd.

Yet Mr. Read and director Luke Sheppard also seem to have a message — something to do with female empowerment and intersectional sensitivity, I think, though the book is so flat-out goofy and full of contradictions that I had trouble making any sense of it. 

Structured as a musical within a musical, “& Juliet” finds William Shakespeare rewriting his tale of star-crossed lovers under pressure from his wife, Anne Hathaway, who convinces the Bard to enlist her as co-author. Anne’s notion is that Juliet shouldn’t kill herself after discovering that Romeo is dead. 

“It seems like she’s got her whole life ahead of her; she’s only had one boyfriend,” Mrs. Shakespeare reasons. “You expect me to change my whole play?” her husband huffs, to which she responds, “Well, it all depends, William. Are you a strong enough man to write a stronger woman?”

That stronger woman turns out to be a lass whose idea of seeing the world is going clubbing in Paris with her non-binary best friend, May, and another buddy, April, a character created and played by Anne when she decides she wants to act as well. April remains dissatisfied, though, whining that her spouse doesn’t spend enough time at home, only to be appeased when he assures her that she’s his greatest source of inspiration.

So, what is the feminist moral here? That a woman can play no greater role than that of a muse? That the most influential writer in the history of the English language should have spent more time doting on his wife?

It doesn’t really matter, of course; however energetically the audience members at a recent preview cheered on Mr. Read’s girl-power platitudes, they were plainly there to hear their favorite pop singles reproduced. The design, from Howard Hudson’s garish lighting to Gareth Owen’s pumped-up sound, readily accommodates this agenda by evoking a pop concert, replete with multi-colored bursts of smoke.

The matching of songs to plot points can seem mildly clever, arbitrary, or ludicrous. Lorna Courtney’s plucky Juliet, declaring her love for Romeo — before discovering that he was a cad — must infuse the frothy favorite “…Baby One More Time” with a sober bombast worthy of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.” As May, Justin David Sullivan sings another early hit for Ms. Spears, a pining ballad with the refrain, “I’m not a girl/Not yet a woman,” leading us to wonder whether the character is planning to transition in a few years, or perhaps Mr. Martin simply couldn’t locate a lyric listing two or more genders as options.

There is genuine tragedy in “& Juliet,” and that’s the waste of talent onstage. The cast includes, in addition to other gifted youngsters, a trio of veterans who deserve so much better. “Kinky Boots” alumnus Stark Sands is saddled with playing Shakespeare as a clueless white guy, while Betsy Wolfe, a charming lead and supporting actress in numerous musical productions over the past 15 years, gamely delivers lines that suggest nagging more often than feistiness. 

The most flagrant injustice involves Paulo Szot, the operatic baritone who earned a Tony Award in 2008 for his dashing star turn in Lincoln Center Theater’s sublime revival of “South Pacific.” In “& Juliet,” Mr. Szot essentially plays a parody of that role, a macho buffoon — the father of a prince who ends up torn between Juliet and May — whose glorious voice, applied to the pop fluff here, is reduced to a joke. Let’s hope that he, and the others, are getting paid really, really well.