Have you missed my excited face? 'Cause it's missed you.
Peter Pan.
Captain America.
Gonzo.
Who doesn’t love a man who can fly?
(Or a man who can survive being shot out of a cannon. Equally hot.)
Answer: aboriginal tribes who’ve yet to be introduced to man-powered flight.
But that’s neither here nor there.
On my last NYC theatre adventure I had so many shows I wanted to see I could barely cram them all in.
Yet, there was one I wanted to see that I hadn’t even mentioned to my mom or Lindsey.
Despite the negative reviews, despite the tales of cast injuries, despite the fact that it’s a musical about a radioactive spider bite, despite the fact that it’s named Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark which is a title that makes absolutely no sense, I just had to see the new* Taymor/U2 musical.
Thankfully, my crazed whims were indulged so one steamy night last month I entered the truly gigantic Foxwoods Theatre to see if it was finally the show that would kill an audience member.
(Spoiler: Nope.)
If you’d like reasons to think this show is dreadful, I have tons available:
- There’s a mythological story about the introduction of spiders accompanied by a Greek chorus. No, that has nothing to do with the plot, but will give you squeegy feelings about women with mechanical spider legs.
- I can’t tell you a single line from a single song. Considering it was written by Bono and The Edge, I can only assume they lost some sort of bet and were forced to pay up by penning the most innocuously boring music ever scribed.
- If possible, the dialogue is actually worse than the music or lyrics. It’s as if they decided to have them speak using only the words written in comic books. And probably only the comic books containing Betty and Veronica.
- As the actors and stuntmen soar over your head, flying to the balcony and around in circles, landing on each other’s backs and deftly moving around the steel wires, it will be difficult to forget the multiple men who’ve been seriously injured doing those exact same things. Thus, these scenes will be half incredibly impressive and half overwhelmingly anxiety driven.
But this post isn’t about hating Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark – there are enough of those posts already out there.
No, this post is about how much I freaking adored Spiderman.
I adore the cast and their voices but most of all I adore the visuals. Taymor (the director) has made everything big and shiny and perfectly tuned to the show.
Every detail of the costumes, with pen strokes added that mimic drawing, perfectly match every piece of the set, from the silver scientist uniforms and machines to the cutout typewriters used by the secretaries at the newspaper office.
When you compare what works against what doesn’t, Spiderman seems to fail.
Yet that doesn’t take into account the sheer fun of this production. You might not leave the theatre having learned something about life or having experienced a transcendental moment but you will leave happy. And what’s a better use of an evening than that?
If I were a superhero I’d be represented by a groundhog
Naturally,
Megan
*Does it count as new if it’s been around for a year but they kept pushing back opening night, hoping the show would get better and thus garner less negative reviews? I’m feeling generous today, so yes.
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