I never saw the musical It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman during its brief Broadway run in 1966 but I've seen four or five local productions of it. That's enough for me to decide that I don't like the show and am not surprised it wasn't a bigger hit. Usually, a non-Sondheim musical that only ran 129 performances on the Great White Way would disappear and never be seen again. I think it's because people so love the character that it keeps being revived here and there for limited runs.
The storyline has a fundamental problem: At the beginning, Lois Lane is in love with Superman and doesn't know he's Clark Kent. At the end, Lois Lane is in love with Superman and doesn't know he's Clark Kent. Very talented folks worked on it but I don't think they were able to juggle that limitation and create a storyline that anyone would care about. They were also torn between treating Superman as a serious hero or as a campy figure to be laughed at. So they more or less tried both and succeeded, insofar as I'm concerned, at neither.
Ergo, I won't be hustling to New York next week to see the four performances that the Encores! series is doing at City Center. If you're going or if you're interested in the show, you might be interested in this 26-minute preview of that production. Edward Watts, who's playing the Man of Steel, sure looks the part and he's surrounded by good actors. I just don't really care if I ever see this particular musical again.
By the way: If you watch this preview, you'll hear the interviewer say something very dumb about how people who are into comics will probably see their first-ever stage musical when they flock to see this show. He don't know us very well, do he?
