Look! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a theatre 700 project!

Author: Colin Foss

It's easy to imagine that mild-mannered Michael, the main character of "Sex Lives of Superheroes," is leading a double life. On the exterior, he is a bumbling nerd who can't seem to escape his teenage infatuation with comic books, but what about his true identity? More than any other innocent alter ego, Michael seems to revel in the pride of knowing that at any moment he could slough off the mundane costume of a twenty-something bachelor and transform into a debonair, self-assured superhero. In this unlikely first issue of a comic never written, Stephen Gregg lays down the tale of what happens when normal men and women take on the forces of evil.
Through his confidant rendering of the role, Joe Barsalona '07 takes the torch of defending the meek Michael against his oppressive and tormenting ex-girlfriend Lisa, craftily interpreted by Cassidy Boyd '10. Her plot: to manipulate Michael into letting her run off with all of his possessions, including his self-esteem. His defense: a timid nature and a pathetically unrequited love. The current situation might seem grim, but things are looking up for our pathetic would-be hero. Who comes to his aide, but Elenor, an equally eccentric romance-story writer referred to Michael through a mutual psychiatrist, oddly enough.
Elenor, played by Stephanie Spencer '09, finds herself sympathizing with the poor guy's plight, and brings the audience in with her. Although this is no storybook romance, the progression of Michael and Elenor's relationship through their dysfunction is oddly endearing. "Sex Lives of Superheroes" exposes in a na've and genuine tone the revelation phase of a budding romance, all the while conscious of the personal eccentricities each of us is hesitant to confess. Spencer wonderfully interprets Elenor's inner turmoil. What finally pushes her to see Michael as a harmless sweetie instead of an oddball case study is her avowal of a peculiar habit - re-writing romance novels to throw classic love stories into a morass of hate and fear.
Charming, isn't it? But her opinion isn't swayed so easily. Spencer injects into the dialogue a certain ambiguity that captures the essence of Elenor's dilemma, but still keeps available the option of leaving Michael to his preteen daydreams. Her involvement in his problems slowly deepens, and the unlikely connection between the two becomes tangible.
Still, Barsalona keeps Michael literally on his toes. His frantic attitude establishes itself from the minute he, clad only in his underwear, flutters onto the stage clutching an Incredible Hulk action figure. The play drifts in and out of Michael's imagination, and the audience plays a role within his fantasies of finally being recognized for his comic book trivia prowess. His neuroticism is at first disconcerting, but then becomes a part of our own identification with the loveable underdog. The role may have been cumbersome for Barsalona, but he manages to fit his body to the emotional demands of Michael.
"Michael is a very shy, nervous and awkward person," said Barsalona, commenting on his 700-level acting project, "something that I am not usually cast in due to my height. Since there was such a large challenge in developing a specific character into my every word and movement, every rehearsal was a learning process for my body and voice."
The result, however, is something light and calming, but without too much fluff. While the characters may flirt with a humorous extended metaphor steeped in the pages of Marvel, the situations they find themselves in and the relationships they develop are serious and strike at sober realism.
"I wanted to give the Middlebury Theatre audience something that they could gain simple enjoyment from without, to put it bluntly, doing any work," wrote Barsalona in his playbill note.
Facile entertainment is what this one-act vignette does best, but the performance, topping off at around 35 minutes, could easily slip into flightiness due to its brevity. Details and their emphasis become extremely important to give the show depth.
"My co-stars (Stephanie Spencer and Cassidy Boyd), along with our director Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki '08," said Barsalona, "spent an enormous amount of time finding places to speed up and slow down the pace in order to highlight specific moments while also making sure that we didn't cut the play too short."
Tirrell-Wysocki gives the actors enough space to develop the relationships within the play, but manages to keep the comic book motif ever-present. The air of false heroism that surrounds the play's events culminates in a triumphant final scene, where the audience almost imagines Michael moving through the last frames of the story with the look of "stay tuned next week" superimposed over his grinning face. The black box of the Hepburn Zoo provided space for set designer Claire Groby '08 to do her magic, creating the austere living situation of our humble bachelor and a sense of intimacy with the characters, who are at eye-level with the audience. "Sex Lives of Superheroes" lightens the mood of the Middlebury Theatre program with its delicate rendering of serious issues. This lends itself well to the kind of gratuitous entertainment Barsalona meant to convey and Tirrell-Wysocki subtly details. Although a successful coup against the powers of evil does not come easily even to superheroes, this play manages to bring Marvel-proportioned hope to us little people unlucky enough to live ordinary lives.