Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark
Foxwoods Theatre, Saturday, May 14
2pm performance
Well, it’s definitely improved, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s “good.” It’s actually a fascinating study on how two different creative teams using the same cast, physical production and composer adapt the same story. The Taymor version was an incoherent, often boring, but always visually stunning mess. The current production is vastly clearer, better directed, but safely (and still gorgeously) predictable.
The book has been vastly improved by cutting the Geek chorus and most of Arachne’s role. And where Taymor was mostly concerned with imagery and spectacle, the current production has instead rightly chosen to strengthen and develop the many relationships (Peter & Mary Jane, Peter & his Aunt/Uncle, Osborn & wife). Playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has done the best he could under the circumstances, creating an intelligible story while also trying to shoe-horn in existing tunes and plot (in just three weeks). In Taymor’s version, the characters seemed secondary to her iconic designs.
The choreography is still head-scratchingly - for lack of a better word - odd. It’s very Janet Jackson a la Rhythm Nation (see picture left and compare to military song in Act 1 - I'll try to post a pic if they ever publish one), but seems thrown in just to give the dancing chorus something to do and not at all in line with the angsty alt rock score.
The flying is all still there, but smartly relegated mostly to Act 2 instead of right up front as in the previous incarnation. As a college director told me once regarding my acting in a scene, “Don’t blow your wad too early or you’ve got no where to go.” At least I think he was talking about my acting. Ah well, wise words regardless of the situation.
Though only one song has been added, the existing score has definitely been re-arranged and augmented. There are actually a couple of solid musical theatre songs in the second act (“Rise Up”, “Say It Now”), but a large chunk of the score is just generic rock.
According to the blogosphere, many lyrics have also been changed. But to be honest, the sound was so bad the first time around (they’ve since fixed this problem) that I have nothing for comparison.
For those of you who care, the biggest changes I noticed:
- Aunt Mae is no longer written as a bitch
- Uncle Ben doesn’t get run over by a car but killed in a home burglary
- Mary Jane’s father is now just a pathetic, helpless drunk rather than an angry drunk
- The Arachne-Peter dream wedding and set are completely cut
- The creation and appearance of the Sinister Six is now much more clearly explained
- Green Goblin is now the main protagonist through the entire show
- The two guitar players are no longer standing on the edge of the stage
- No more eight-legged shoe song for Arachne
- There are actually jokes written into the script (the original was a humorless bore)
- There’s now actually an arc to the Peter-Mary Jane story so they don’t just fall in love and break-up out of nowhere
- Though there’s more dialogue, they’ve managed to trim about 30 mins from the original 3-hour-plus running time
Incidentally, no one fell, nothing got stuck and nobody broke any bones. I’d give the new production a solid C+ and the new artistic team an A for effort. Shout out to replacement director Phil McKinley who directed me eons ago at The Fireside Theatre in Christmas Around the World. And yes, that show was as cheesy as it sounds.
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