Abraham Riesman delves into the history of the 1966 Broadway show, It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman, and into a recent attempt to revise and revive it. The show did not last long in New York in '66 but it does get revived now and then, probably to the sheer commercial appeal of putting Superman on stage.
I didn't see the original version but I've seen several local productions and I don't think it's a very good show. The storyline puts Superman through a psychiatric crisis which doesn't make a lot of sense and isn't something we want to see Our Hero experience. It also has the problem that the plot doesn't go anywhere. At the end of the Li'l Abner musical, Abner and Daisy Mae get married. At the end of the Annie musical, Little Orphan Annie gets a good home.
At the end of It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman, everything is exactly as it was when things started. Name me a successful play where that's the case. (I'm not saying there isn't one but you'll probably have to think for quite a while.)
Several folks sent me links to this article and asked me why I thought DC Comics had placed so many restrictions on the original version — like no Lex Luthor — and seems so uncooperative with the recent revival/revision. I cannot explain the workings of DC Comics for the last few years and, insofar as I can tell, neither can anyone who worked at the company.
In the sixties? I dunno. I only met longtime Superman editor Mort Weisinger once — very briefly and (amazingly) on his very last day of being the editor of the Superman comics. Everyone I've ever met who worked with him said he had a reason for everything he did and that reason was usually to bolster the power of Mort Weisinger. My guess is that if they'd hired him to work on the musical, he would have been more cooperative…but that's just a guess. Anyway, it's a good article even if we don't understand why some of the things that happened happened.