Superman

I went to see It's a bird, it's a plane, it's superman: the musical last week and I had mixed thoughts on it. Maybe I didn't love it because I'm just not a big fan of musicals in general, but I think that there were some elements that I didn't like beyond the cheesy 60's dance theme that pervaded the entire play. The play didn't invite me to care about the characters- Clark Kent had problems to contrast the great life of Superman, but his personality wasn't developed enough so that I would feel empathy for him. None of the characters really sparked my interest so the play became more of a sequence of neat design elements strung together to create a spectacle that was fun to watch but wasn't moving or memorable.

But- I can talk favorably about the design elements! I really liked the backdrop of the the cartoon strip that had a different square highlighted in each scene to show how the play correlated to the original American Superhero. The other major cartoon reference was of the actors on the structure that looked like a cartoon strip- It reinforced the cartoon while allowing the action to progress.

The dances really stood out as crazy productions and highlighted the great dancers in the cast. I felt mixed about the singing as a part of the play. I felt that it often had the purpose of allowing the actor to get downstage of the cartoon strip background so that the set behind it could be changed. The evil docter had a great sequence in font of it- but his singing monologues to the audience seemed slightly repetitive.

In all, I don't want to disrespect anyone who was a part of it- maybe I would have just chosen a different musical to put up and that was the director's choice that I disagree with.