Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

BACK in the mid-sixties pop art made its debut on the American scene; all the most ludicrous examples of mass urban culture shined as serious artworks. Andy Warhol got rich off his Campbell soup cans, George Segal for his over-all plaster casts of live human beings, Roy Lichtenstein for his comic strip tableaux.

Producer Harold Prince took what pop did to art and applied it to drama in his 1966 play, It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman. Though the show flopped on Broadway--folding after 129 performances--it made stage history of a kind. This was the first time a comic book hero was ever adapted to the stage, and treated as a serious work of art.

Andy Borowitz '80 brought Prince's show to the Agassiz Theater, and shortened the title to Superman, updating and adding to the humor of the original.

Before working on the show Borowitz had already garnered an impressive list of credits in Harvard comic theater. Last year he wrote the script of the Hasty Pudding show, "A Thousand Clones." He also kept himself busy directing his original show, "Gars and Goyles," a musical comedy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

SUPERMAN, a musical comedy in two acts, is cleverly set against a comic-book backdrop of the city of Metropolis. In the upper left-hand corner of the stage is the "DC Comics" logo. Superman--played by Randy Stone '78--first appears by stepping out of a slit in the painted-on telephone booth. One has the sense early on in the show that Superman--and indeed all of the characters--step off the pages of a comic book onto the stage. Later on in the play, rather than use regular furniture in the Daily Planet newsroom, Borowitz utilizes flat, stand-up painted desks and typewriters--maintaining that two dimensional feel.

The plot of Superman smacks of what we have all sopped up since age seven from DC Comics. All the familiar characters are there, along with a few new faces--Max Mencken (remember H.L.) the sleazy reporter for the Daily Planet; Dr. Abner Sedgwick, a frustrated mad scientist from the Metropolis Institute of Technology (MIT); and the Flying Lings, a threesome of oriental acrobats.

Sedgwick, the villainous "ten-time Nobel prize loser," seeks to ruin Superman's reputation in Metropolis. Strongly played by Fred Barton, the mad doctor epitomizes nurdiness; he is the science wonk par excellence, dressed in white lab coat, sneakers, and ABC sportscaster's plaid pants. One of the best moments in the play comes when Sedgwick daintily galivants across the stage, trilling his song "Revenge," and rolling the "r" at each refrain.

Sedgwick recruits the Flying Lings to throw dynamite on City Hall while Superman is receiving a tribute from high school cheerleaders. The accusatory finger points at Superman for this lapse from exemplary behavior; the Metropolis citizenry ostracizes the unfortunate superhero.

MENCKEN--excellently portrayed by Brian McCue '81--chortles with delight over Superman's fall from glory. Tweaking his moustache and swaggering with nebbish aplomb, McCue belts out his song, "So Long, Big Guy." McCue's expressive face, quizzical eyebrows, and fussy gestures clinch his characterization of the oily little reporter. He's such a wise guy, you feel like giving him a slap in the face.

With Mencken's aid, the evil doctor Sedgwick kidnaps Superman. Sedgwick plans to turn Superman into his lackey, then use him in a scheme to take over the world with "the most sophisticated brain in the western world," his computer Brainiac 7.

Borowitz brilliantly parodies Freudian psychology in the scene in which Sedgwick tries to brainwash Superman. Sedgwick accuses Superman of being "rejected as a child" and of craving "the adulation of millions." "Who told you we needed a Superman?" he barks at the cowed and cringing extra-terrestrial. He convinces Superman that normal people drive cars, rather than fly.

Superman pulls out of his funk at the end of the show of course; his overwhelming desire to do good triumphs in the face of Freudian psychoanalysis. During a song called "Pow! Bam! Zonk!" Superman trounces his foes, returns as Metropolis's hero, and wins the love of Lois Lane--who has been drooling after him throughout the entire show.

THE only thing disappointing in all this is the portrayal of Superman himself. Randy Stone stands out as the least successful figure in the show. His ingenuous good looks fit him perfectly to the role physically; however, as an actor he makes little differentiation between his treatment of characters Clark Kent and Superman. He plays both roles with a basically boring country-bumpkin naivete.

Laura Hastings' '80 Lois Lane, on the other hand, sparkles with freshness and originality. She has added comic dimensions to the character which never existed in either the "Superman" television series or in the comic books. Lois is at once the ardent feminist--"I'm not a girl," she declares, "I'm Today's Active Woman"--as well as the lovesick, horny girl who purrs the song "Oh, How I Wish I Weren't In Love With Superman."

The true Lois finally surfaces in the song, "What I've Always Wanted," when two female members of the chorus hand a crooning Lois pampers, and an A&P shopping bag, a plastic toy train, all the accoutrements of the suburban housewife.

Unfortunately, the really trenchant farcical moments in Superman like the above are not too frequent. However, due to good staging, some excellent individual performances, and the novel idea of applying pop art to the theater, Superman very definitely gets "up, up and away."

Great Caesar's Ghost!