Tiny Pineapple

 It's A Bird, It's a Plane,
It's Superman

I said “yes” again. That’s why things have been rather quiet around here. Just as we were finishing up rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof, a friend called and invited me to be in a musical she was directing entitled, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman.

My first response was, “Sorry, no.”

Actually, my first response was, “There’s a Superman musical?” But my second response was, “Sorry, no.”

Between working two jobs, parenting, Fiddler rehearsals, and the beginning of the new school year, taking on yet another responsibility would be lunacy. But this was someone I’ve always wanted to work with and she assured me that it was a small part and that I wouldn’t have to be there for any rehearsals until after Fiddler closed. So, I said yes.

And it was lunacy.

Doing two shows back-to-back means that anything not parenting-, work-, or musical-theater-related has been completely neglected since mid-June. I abandoned Jodi in mid-technical-support crisis, I haven’t spoken to Kate in over six weeks, and my InBox is so full that I may have to declare email bankruptcy.

But I’ve been having more fun than I’ve had in years. I play Jim Morgan, the going-for-‘dashing’-but-only-managing-‘smug’ lab assistant of the evil Dr. Sedgwick, the villain of the piece. (I’m a good guy, though.) And, in the end, Lois has to choose between Superman and me. Of course, there’s no real question as to who she’ll end up, but I take some consolation in the fact that while Superman doesn’t get a kiss, I do.

As it says in the script:

ACT ONE
Scene 6

The screening room at the Daily Planet, an open room with a few seats and a large movie screen that drops from the top of the stage. LOIS and JIM enter.

LOIS
(Looking about)

Oh, looks like Dr. Sedgwick isn’t here yet.

JIM

Good. Let’s go up to the balcony and neck.

LOIS
(Girlish)

Jim, cut it out! Professor Sedgwick could walk in any minute.

JIM

Not Abner. It’ll take him another hour to get his car started.

LOIS

Don’t make fun of him. He’s a very wonderful man.

JIM

You think Sedgwick’s wonderful. You think Superman’s wonderful. But when you’re alone with somebody who really is wonderful, you don’t know it.

(HE suddenly kisses her. A good, long kiss with etc. in it. THEY come apart slowly.)

(Music starts)

A kiss “with etc. in it?” What does that mean exactly? I still have no idea, but I’ve been exploring the dramatic possibilities…which presents a certain moral dilemma since Lois and I are experiencing the kiss from very different perspectives. Me? I’m kissing a very charming, very attractive, and very 21-year-old young woman. She’s kissing a middle-aged nerd in a lab coat.

All is know is that, from a purely aesthetic perspective, it is a very pleasant experience. I just wish I weren’t as keenly aware of that fact as I am.

The show itself is hilarious and I’m really surprised it isn’t done more often. It originally opened on Broadway on March 29, 1966 and received pretty decent reviews (The New York Times declared that it was “…easily the best musical this season”), but it never really found an audience and closed after only 129 performances.

Jaime Weinman did an excellent write-up on the show back in 2004. (Though I would take exception to his assessment of the song “It’s Super Nice,” which, in the context of the show, is absolutely hilarious.) As he puts it:

Superman was one of those shows that seemed to have everything going for it and still flopped.

He thinks the show’s failure was due to the fact that Superman isn’t really the stand-out role in the show. But I think it may have just been the wrong show at the wrong time.

Hal Prince, who directed the show, won the Tony that year for Best Direction…but for Cabaret, not Superman. The book was written by David Newman and Robert Benton, who were nominated for an Oscar for Bonnie and Clyde the following year. And if Cabaret and Bonnie and Clyde were what the sophisticated palette of 1960s theater-and-film-going public was looking for, I can’t imagine a piece of fluff like Superman faring well.

The show probably offended the sensibilities of Superman purists, too. Lex Luthor is nowhere to be found and, in classic 1960s fashion, Superman isn’t defeated by Kryptonite, but by psychoanalysis.

Get a load of this dialogue between the evil Dr. Sedgwick and Superman:

SEDGWICK
(Compassionately)

I know of your unfortunate childhood. What a shock it must have been when your parents placed you in a rocket and shot you out of their lives. Rejected, alone. Is it any wonder that you depend so on the adulation of millions?

(SUPERMAN shaken, falling apart, drops in a chair.)

SUPERMAN

But they do love me —

SEDGWICK

Oh do they? Yes, they love the performer, the stunt man who flies in the sky —

(As if HE just thought of it.)

Flying? You know, of course, that flying is a well-known dream symbol of frustration, but let that pass.

(Patronizingly)

I know you really can fly. Of course Clark Kent can’t fly. But then he doesn’t need to. He has a job, a home, friends. Remember, the world created Superman, but you created Clark Kent. Why have you found it necessary to live this double life? Could it be because you are unable to accept responsibility?

SUPERMAN

Dr. Sedgwick, I…can’t…think anymore —

SEDGWICK
(Heading for home, driving hard)

Superman, this is truth. A child who is rejected thinks in his childish way that he has done something wrong. A creature, who walks among men, disguised as one of them, and yet rejects the idea of living as one of them?? Such a man is consumed by guilt! Such a man will perform so-called good deeds in the hopes of alleviating that guilt!

SUPERMAN

Have I no right to do my job?

SEDGWICK
(Relentlessly, ruthlessly hammering him down)

Who gave you that right?

WEIRDO MUSIC

Who set you up as the judge? Who told you that men couldn’t deal with their own lives? Who told you that we need a Superman?

(SUPERMAN slowly drops to the chair, his head in his hand, beaten. Totally self-absorbed, and broken.)

SEDGWICK

I did it! I did it!

(I think more musicals need to have “WEIRDO MUSIC,” don’t you?)

There was a 100-minute TV version produced in 1975 in which Leslie Ann Warren played Lois Lane and Loretta Swit played Sydney. (Can Loretta Swit belt?) But they apparently stripped the TV version of a lot of the musical numbers, which is sort of like stripping a coconut cream pie of the coconut and the cream. You’re left with nothing but crust. And who wants to watch a crusty non-musical musical?

And speaking of the music, it’s pretty terrific. Here are a few clips from the Original Broadway Soundtrack.

• Overture (17 seconds, 220 kb, MP3 format)

  I love the beginning of the overture. It’s so…manly.

• Doing Good (45 seconds, 540 kb, MP3 format)

  This is Superman’s first song, sung as he’s changing into his Clark Kent uniform (ala Mr. Rogers).

  It’s a satisfying feeling
  When you hang up your cape,
  To know that you’ve averted
  Murder, larceny, and rape.
  

  “Cape” and “rape?” That’s…um…quite a rhyme.

• We Don’t Matter At All (48 seconds, 580 kb, MP3 format)

  This is my song. Like Esqueleto in Nacho Libre, “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science.”

  Oh, sure,
  Ev’ry hundred years or so,
  We come up with a Gandhi
  or a Michaelangelo.
  “Hurray!
  Ain’t that dandy!” we say,
  Then we much things up
  The same destructive way!

  “Gandhi” and “dandy?” Does it get any better than that?

• You’ve Got Possibilities (63 seconds, 760 kb, MP3 format)

  This is my favorite song in the whole show. It’s sung by Sydney, the girlfriend of the evil, self-serving Daily Planet columnist Max Menken. She sings it to Clark Kent after growing increasingly frustrated with the ever-flakey Max.

  [Note #1: That’s Linda Lavin on the recording. She later achieved TV stardom in Alice.]

  [Note #2: Even though I’d never heard of this musical before, I thought this song sounded vaguely familiar. I finally figured out that Pillsbury has used it in some of their commercials.]

• It’s Super Nice (45 seconds, 500 kb, MP3 format)

  Ah, the controversial “It’s Super Nice.” Yes, it’s annoying to listen to, but I promise you it’s a hoot to watch.

• Meanwhile… (91 seconds, 1 MB, MP3 format)

  This one starts out…

  We see a small panel, lettered, comic-book style, “Meanwhile…” Then, as number progresses, we see six panels, of various sizes, arranged in two rows like a comic strip. Each panel is really a box in which CHARACTERS appear. Music underscores the entire scene.

  And in case you’re wondering, this section:

  Why are we always out of job?
  It’s Superman!

  …is sung by The Flying Lings, a family of Chinese acrobats who are out of work since, as they put it, “People don’t pay to see Flying Lings when they can watch Superman fly for free!”

  How’s that for 1960s cultural sensitivity?

And speaking of Chinese acrobats and 1960s cultural sensitivity, the whole show has a certain Thoroughly Modern Millie feel to it, which may be why I like it so much.

Anyway, it’s a really great production of an oddly great show. Unfortunately, we only have five performances left:

• Thursday: 7:30pm
• Friday: 7:30pm
• Saturday: 2:00pm and 7:30pm (Conflicting with General Conference, unfortunately…)
• Monday: 7:30pm

…so I apologize for not getting the word out earlier. But, as is true of a lot of my life: I can either do it or I can document it. I can’t seem to find the time to do both. So I usually opt for “doing.”

With only five performances left, I’d encourage you to make reservations as soon as possible. (It’s reserved seating, so buying your tickets in advance is a must.) And, if you come, we do a little cast Meet-n-Greet in the lobby afterwards so be sure to say, “Hi.”

The girls and I are performing in Fiddler on the Roof at the Scera Shell Outdoor Theatre this summer. I’m playing the Rabbi and the girls are playing my daughters…or maybe granddaughters, depending on how old Jerry Elison, the director, wants me to play the part.

At Jerry’s request, I’ve been growing a beard since early April. Summer in Utah is not the best time to be sporting facial hair, but I’m all for authenticity (says the guy who’s playing the perhaps-80-year-old Rabbi), so I don’t mind. Besides, I had a beard last summer for Crazy for You and the summer before that for Oklahoma.

I hadn’t trimmed the beard for a few weeks, so I got up early this morning to clean it up a bit before I had to wake up the girls and get to rehearsal. It was early enough that I was still a little bleary-eyed, but I was doing pretty well and I’d just managed to give the bottom of my moustache a crisp, bold, definitive edge with the electric trimmers when my hand slipped and I took a good 3”x3” chunk of beard on my chin right down stubble.

I stood there, staring at the gaping beard wound in the mirror for a few seconds, and then I went on trimming the rest of my beard as if nothing had happened. I must have been in beard shock, because I honestly thought for a moment that if I didn’t acknowledge the hole, it would just go away. Perhaps my beard auto-immune system would kick in and miraculously repair the damage. Or maybe no one would notice my lily-white chin shining out from the center of my jet-black beard.

But, like any man with a really obvious bald spot, I could only fool myself for so long…at which point I started thinking of ways to disguise it. I considered trying to hide the gap by continuously stroking my chin as if I was lost in perpetual thought about some very weighty issues. Then I considered that infomercial hair spray paint, but even with expedited shipping there was little chance of it arriving before rehearsal at 9:00am.

So I started “blending,” cutting the surrounding edges shorter to ease the transition…which succeeded in turning the original 3-inch patch into a 5-inch field. Then I decided the best thing to do was to trim the whole beard down to the same length…which didn’t work out quite as well as I thought it would. And by the time the girls woke up, I had a face that was so soft and smooth it would have put every baby’s bottom in a ten mile radius to shame.

So I’m back to square one…or hair one, as the case may be…

Friday night was closing night for Oklahoma! While I’ll be very happy to have my nights back, I’m really going to miss it. It was a lot of fun and it was an especially nice group of people to work with. Everyone in the cast treated Emma and Zoe like princesses. The high school and college kids especially went out of their way to make them feel like an important part of the ensemble. They had such a good time, they’re already asking when they can be in another play.

As for me, I’m re-entering retirement, which is probably for the best. My performance generated some…how shall I put this…”strong opinions” on the local theater message boards. Here’s my personal favorite:

“Judd Frye was a pansy. Instead of being a hatefilled hired hand who everyone was afraid of, he was a whining puppy, not very convincing.”

So, it’s either that or I portrayed Jud as a complex, mixed-up someone you truly feel sorry for. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Having had to grow a scroungy beard for the peformance, I was finally able to shave last night for the first time in three months. But this morning I got out of the shower and was reminded once again just how tedious having to shave every day is. I flirted with the idea of keeping the beard for the winter, but I’m not really in a beardy mood right now. A few people suggested that I just shave the sides and keep a goatee. I shot them where they stood.

I remember thinking back in 1994, “OK, fellows, we’ve done the goatee thing…it’s time to move on.” And yet here we are a decade later and people are still advocating a small pointed or tufted beard named for its resemblance to the beard of a he-goat. I just don’t get the appeal. And while I understand on an intellectual level that “goatees don’t kill people; people kill people,” have you ever noticed how many of those people have goatees? (Exhibits A, B, and C.)

Pore Jud is daid, or so I’ve been singing every night in the deepest baritone a first tenor can muster. Jud is, of course, very much alive when he makes that assertion at the end of Act 1 of Oklahoma! That’s what passes for irony in a Rogers and Hammerstein show.

My acting career is daid, too, or so I have to keep reminding people since my recurring presence on the stage tends to give folks the wrong impression. I retired from acting a decade ago. Honest. But every once in a while I’ll get a call from a friend and the next thing I know I’m on stage wearing a coconut bra and grass skirt.

The past few times the call has come from Jerry Elison, the man who started my acting career 28 years ago when he cast him as the lead in a production of Tom Sawyer at Orem Jr. High School. I’d just moved to Utah from Virginia, so he didn’t have the slightest idea who I was, but he took a chance on me and changed my life forever.

Since then, I’ve done almost three dozen productions for him. He first lured out of retirement six years ago when his Luther Billis dropped out of South Pacific three weeks into rehearsals. Four years ago he needed a Jeff Douglas for his Brigadoon. This time, I’m Jud. And I’m dead. At least I am by the end of Act 2, a fact that has fascinated my daughters to no end.

Emma: Are you going to die today, Dad?

Me: No, I think we’re only running Act 1.

Emma: (Disappointed.) Awww…

Me: But we’re running Act 2 on Saturday, so you’ll be able to see me die then.

Emma: Yipee!

They’ve taken to saying “Yipee!” (along with other sundry Western exclamations like “Yeehaw!” and “Yow!”) because they’re in the show with me. That was the real enticement to come out of retirement this time around. I’m not particularly adept at playing the heavy, but the chance for the three of us to be in a play together was too good to pass up. So, for the past few months we’ve been trekking off to rehearsals almost every night. The girls would bring activity books or something to read between their scenes, and we’d spend the evening hanging out, surrounded by music, dancing, and some very talented people.

That’s one of the reasons postings have been few and far between for the past few months, but we opened on Monday so things things are starting to quiet down. If you’re in the area, we run for another week and a half at the Scera Shell (here are the details), after which we move the whole thing (windmill and all) down to BYU for a week of performances in the deJong Concert Hall during Education Week.

Your enticement to come? Well, I hear the villain’s not especially good, but there are two really cute kids in the chorus.