SUPERMAN!!!!!!

Going to see Superman was quite an experience; my first show that I saw on the main stage here at William and Mary after having seen/been in several small, student-run shows. The extravagance of the show was thus even grander after the small or zero budget shows I saw earlier in the year. It was a lot of fun getting to see some of the different things that our theater department is capable of doing.
My initial reaction to the show was similar to most of the other people that I talked to about the show. (I really only talked to other students about it because I kind of forgot that I was supposed to talk to other people in the audience, but I did get a range of all different WM students for different opinions) Most people that I talked to about the show said something to the extent of “Well the play they chose totally sucked”, and I definitely agree. The fact that the play is known for being a 1970’s Broadway flop raises question to why the school would have thought that it would turn out to be a good show. The plot, dialogue, and music were all pretty boring, predictable, and unsuccessfully written. All of the people that I talked to about the show except for one thought that the play itself was no good, thus making it harder to make judgments about the quality of acting, singing, etc.
But enough of my little venting about the play…there were many aspects of the show that I also enjoyed and found engaging (as did all of the people that I talked to). After the lectures from the different directors in class, there were things that I was definitely looking for in the show. I was looking at the colors in the costumes, the lighting techniques, and the choreography. When I talked to other students about the play, they commented a lot on the music. They noticed the character’s voices and the songs in the show. They noted that most of the songs ended in the same fashion, with a large booming ending, a ritard at the end for emphasis and a very MGM-feel-good feeling. This was not something I really noticed, but I understand this opinion. I looked a lot at the choreography during the songs. Many of the songs were solos without any other characters on stage. The actor really had to take control of the stage and use the space so that he/she would not be swallowed up being alone onstage. Thus, the choreography for these songs was very sweeping, less small gestures in a certain spot of the stage, and more movement across the stage back and forth, moving around to take up space. For the songs where the whole cast was onstage I noted that the choreographer tried to take up all the space, including the areas that had been additionally built for the show. The cast spread out across the stage and made good use of the space, using their formation with ‘windows’ so that everyone was seen and groupings to distinguish Superman vs. the townspeople vs. the school kids, etc.
Other people I talked to commented on the costumes and how much fun they were fitting the time period. The female business suits with matching hats and the male suits with plaid patterns and loud designs were great for the comic book look. While the people in the audience saw the costumes as “loud” and “fun” to match this cartoony feel of the original Superman, I was able to better understand the costume choices with regard to color after hearing the costume lecture. I was able to see how the cast was not usually dressed in bright blue or red because these were Superman’s colors and by having his character be the only one wearing these colors, he stuck out a lot more in the crowd. I also noted how the cast was often dressed in shades of the same color depending on the scene. I thought this was great, and gave the cast a sort of unity and made them all blend together into a mass of people, in the same way that the crowds of people in the comic strip would have looked.
Finally, people I talked to commented a lot on the set of the show, on how it was also very successful in being comic-booky with animated images and loud colors. Everyone liked the set and said that it added a lot to the show, making it really a comic book that came alive. Especially having the in-between scenes/set changes with the screen painted like a comic book page and the light focusing on a single square. This was a significant technical choice that I thought was very successful. The correspondence of the highlighted comic square with the story going on stage was a constant reminder that the play is an adaption from a popular comic book and that a purpose of the play was to keep it looking as much as a comic book as it could. The light really focused the audience’s eyes onto the square of choice, which made sure we were following the plot of the story.
One interesting thing I found out about this part of the set from one of the theater majors who had helped work on the show was that there was some miscommunication between the different designers which is why there was a tie painted on the set in the pictures of the evil doctor, and yet onstage he wore a bowtie. It is small things like this that even I did not notice after having been through lectures about the show, but that the people working on the show noticed. Ultimately the designers decided that it was a small enough difference between costume and set that it could be overlooked.
Overall, I feel that after having heard the different designers in the show speak that I was definitely able to more deeply understand some of the artistic choices made in the show. While many parts I saw on the same surface level as the rest of the audience (although, who knows, many of the audience may have understood parts of the show better than I did, but I may not have talked to them), I feel that having heard the designers speak gave me a better understanding of intentions and choices made with the show.