Just saw Spider-man TOTD for the 2nd time (the first time I saw it was the 3rd day of previews last Fall) and (I have to admit) really loved it this time (so let the sniping begin )…
The first time I saw it, I generally found the first act to tell an enjoyable, coherent, Spider-man "origins" story, but found the 2nd Act (as have apparently many) confusing plot-wise, with too many plodding-paced ballads and directorial indulgences…
While I can't give you a point-by-point comparison of what exactly changed, the bottom line for me is that the show is now definitely a coherent, enjoyable, and entertaining whole from beginning to end. The first Act seemed smoother (and the show as a whole had no technical mishaps), with at most some tweaks here and there to keep things generally moving. The second Act has been given a rousing finale, including the addition of a new Arachne web as the backdrop for the final battle scene (into which Spiderman scampers effectively up and down as he tried to break through initially to get to Mary Jane), an effective battle between Spidey and Arachne, a visually striking image of Arachne ascending to the heavens and "becoming" a "star pattern", and an exciting final whirl around the hall of Reeve Carney as Spider-man, plus an overtly-pandering (but nonetheless enjoyable) curtain call sequence in which he performs the famous upside-down kiss maneuver borrowed shamelessly from the first Spiderman film. There was also some additional exposition inserted before Deeply Furious (yes, it's still there, but it's campiness somehow felt more consistent with the comic-book campiness already seen elsewhere, including the whole inflatable wrestling match thing earlier, which to me is all just part of Julie's sometimes bizarre creative world), in which Arachne at least explains what is going on as far as everything being an illusion, her intent to capture Mary Jane, her being upset with Peter Parker not donning the Spidey suit again, etc., etc. The Geek Chorus also seemed less annoying by far, and (if I recall), the scene in which Arache sort of takes over their reality (thus confusing us even more about who the Geek Chorus is exactly supposed to be, etc., etc.), with the Chorus ultimately "banished" for the rest of the musical, etc., etc., I believe no longer occurs - they seem to come in throughout when actually serving a useful observational purpose, and otherwise stay out of the way. Frankly, the audience gave them - as well as the rest of the cast - a fantastically rousing ovation by the end, and throughout seemed to accept them and be entertained by their lines and not annoyed the least.
I can't really completely explain why the musical as a whole for me just "worked" (unlike last time, where it felt rough around the edges). Certainly, there are still book issues - there is little chemistry between the two leads, and Arachne's motivation for freeing Spidey at the end still feels confusing. But taken as a whole (and, as I'm sure many feel - "for better or for worse"), there's no denying that the show in it's current form is Julie's vision - the approach she set out to take from the beginning (including the whole mythological angle that I was resistant to the first time; the use of multiple vs. merely 1 villain; the desire to tell more than the origin story and to try and encapsulate material from multiple movies, etc., etc.), and, of course, the stunning visual set design and imaginative overall lighting and imagery. Frankly, I can SEE now why she really felt it was "done", and find myself actually feeling sorry for her (as an artist myself) - like the final product or not, there's no denying that this is what she intended to make, and I can't fathom how someone who put so much creativity into a project and actually made it "work" now in many ways can watch as it's slowly picked apart, first by critics, and now by the new members of the creative team. I, for one, am glad to have caught it in it's current form (which, incidentally, would have been the day after the most recent "opening night" )…I feel for Julie, I commend her for what she's achieved (notwithstanding the sniping here), and I'll cross my fingers that the "improvements" they make will not upset what has already been done. Though I'm sure many here will say that any changes can only help (blah blah blah ), my thoughts are that it's actually hard to take something so specifically tied to an overall creative approach and try to change something here; something there; without the basic integrity starting to get lost - but I wish them well, and hats off to the entire cast for enduring this all with such whole-hearted effort….
A final word about the music: I'm actually happy (notwithstanding my comments above) that they're bringing in someone to help clarify the sound quality and tighten the orchestrations/arrangements, etc., and I certainly can see how some pure theatre-lovers can be dismissive towards the more poetic, generalized rock-lyric approach taken here (vs. the more traditional role of using the music to tell the action/tell the story more specifically, etc., etc.). All I can say (and this as a composer of theatre/film/t.v. myself), is that it also basically just "worked" - it's obviously U2-styled (what else would you expect?), but there were many lovely musical moments and several memorable tunes (including, as others have also cited, "If the World Should End", "Boy Falls From the Sky", and "Rise Above", but also "Bullying By Numbers" and even "Turn Off the Dark", not to mention that damned-insistent guitar-hook-laden melody that typically accompanied all the flying ) - overall, more than enough to leave me feeling musically satisfied, and not even remotely close to the "disaster" that others have suggested it is. Frankly, if the show opened as-is as of today, I think it would be a big hit (not that a show's commercial success is always a reflection of its "objective" artistic merit). But we'll see what happens from here… - robjohn
Thanks so much for the detailed review! Glad to hear a positive review. I have a question if you don't mind. What exactly is going on onstage during Deeply Furious? I know they are raiding the shoe stores, but is Arachne in human form for this number, or does she still fly in her giant spider apparatus? Thanks!
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
^ Ummm Excuse me? They wrote a well written review if the show and you're going to Attack them? Your comments on "intellectual pollution" are just plain ignorant.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
Thank you RobJohn99 for the well-expressed, finely detailed report. And Idiot, I'll avoid the easy association of your moniker with your mental abilities but...
What a wonderful review! I would absolutely love to see it before they do a complete overhaul on the show (I saw it 12/23) and I'd love to see it after the big changes. I'm just so fascinated by how a show can evolve like this. But ya know.... if I had a million dollars........
" I'm not trying to be 'nasty' to you folks -- I just think that intellectual pollution on Broadway is emblematic of a very dark turn in our culture."
I'm no Spidey fan, but what a stupid, inane attitude. By those standards people could complain about a ton of Broadway faves and hit shows--claiming left and right of "intellectual pollution" (Wha??)
I don't get why this review was attacked. He wrote an extensive report on how he viewed the show a second time. He gave criticisms and critiques. Why are people not allowed to share opinions on here? He isn't encouraging pollution at all, like Eric said, you could call many popular shows intellectual pollution. The stupidity and ignorance on this board amazes me sometimes.
The music still really lags - and whatever you can do to "save" this show, I think, is beyond repair because you're stuck with this generic rock soundtrack. I saw the show last week and was entertained but not excited by it - as the Washington Post said, you can feel the energy of the audience getting snuffed out by the spirit of the production ..... one big heavy sigh.
Idiot's comments are outright idiotic. How fitting. Attacking someone for writing a well written and thorough review of a BROADWAY show on a BROADWAY message board? You've got to be kidding me.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
Idiot, your posts are so astonishingly ignorant that I almost don't believe that they were written seriously.
First of all, the assumption that something with its roots in comic books is for philistine morons is unbelievably shallow, and dismissive of an entire art form. People do the same thing to musical theatre all the time.
I also don't understand why you think seeing Spider-Man precludes you from supporting all kinds of other work. I've seen Spider-Man and will see it again once it re-opens. In the past few weeks, I have also seen Arcadia, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Good People, and Peter and the Starcatcher.
Of course, many of the people who buy tickets to Spider-Man won't be buying tickets to those shows, but they would never be interested, anyway. It's a much wider audience. And maybe, like the Disney shows that were so loathed when they began (and are still considered the downfall of Broadway by some short-sighted people), it will get a new generation of kids more interested in taking a closer look at theatre.
Spider-Man, in its roots, has the capacity to be a very big story with very big themes that is very worthwhile. Julie's show is certainly not there, and there are many criticisms that can and should be levied against it. But the dismissive and condescending attitude toward the very idea of the show is unhelpful and shows a great deal of artistic cowardice.
Okay, bwayphreak234, I'll be a little more specific.
There was a time that the film industry used their largest and best resources to tell stories for grown ups -- NETWORK, CHINATOWN... even THE EXORCIST was a fully realized adult story. They told stories that engaged you and made you think -- not just illicit a cheap emotion or thrill.
Then they realized that it's easier to trick a teenager into buying a ticket for a 'spectacular' than it is to fool an adult into buying a ticket to something that's intellectually dead. Enter: the comic book movie. The toy movie. The summer action flick.
Now Broadway has the most expensive production ever to take the stage. It's a comic book play. If it were to be a wild success, you'd see another one soon. And another. And another. The resources that exist to bring shows to the stage would start to be monopolized by the megamusical, making it much more difficult for a FALSETTOS or COMPANY or TITLE OF SHOW to get it's place on a Broadway marquee.
This IS what happened in Hollywood, and it is the direction that Broadway has been flirting with for many years. STOTD is a giant surge in this direction.
That's not okay with me. If it is for you, or if you simply disagree with me, fine.
Have you been introduced to Broadway? I'm gonna say no, they haven't. Your arguments and logic make no sense, Idiot. The fact that you think producers are trying to "trick" teenagers is absolutely absurd. Do you really think Julie Taymor made Spider-Man just to trick teens? I know I don't and I don't think you will find one person on this board that will either. Also, how can you possibly think Broadway can be monopolized like the Hollywood industry? They are both completely different industries. I don't know how you think Hollywood has been "polluted" when we had movies like The King's Speech, Black Swan, and Social Network all become massive box office hits and win Oscars.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
Staying far away from the sniping , I wanted to add a couple of more observations about what has changed between the version I saw last night and the version from the Fall: - generally, anytime they could, they tried to quicken the accompanimental musical pace, even when singing what were previously slow, lyrical sorts of melodies overtop (vs. before when they tended to remain ballads in feel, which dragged the show down)...This was particularly noticeable in Peter Parker's climactic "running in spot" scene as he heads to Arachne/Mary Jane towards the end - previously, the piece began extremely slowly with a minimum of rhythmical accompaniment; now it gets into a heavy groove early on and maintains an exciting momentum thru to the end (which received a thunderously positive response last night and I thought was quite effective). As I mentioned before, the ending sequence of the musical also did this to great effect, minimizing the "ethereal/glacial" sorts of tempi and diving into "Rise Above" to round out the musical as Peter Parker flies around the auditorium... - they definitely cut some non-essential Geek Chorus stuff, and completely cut a scene in Act 2 that previously occurred in which Arachne visits Jameson in human form (which at the time struck me as bizarre and illogical). The focus in Act 2 has overall become much less on Arachne's determination to get Jameson's attention to generate newspaper headlines, and much more on her jealousy of Mary Jane (what does she have that I haven't got, etc., etc.), and therefore her motivation to grab her by the end and hold her essentially hostage...This (whether we all like it or not ) is also now the motivation for that whole "Furious" number, which feels essentially (and albeit campily) like Arachne is essentially saying "I'm more woman than MJ - hell, I've got 8 legs instead of 2" (to paraphrase), which she then "shows off" with the other furies... - there were other moments also which to me helped heighten the dramatic flow. Previously, MJ was talking casually about canned peaches when she suddenly disappeared (ostensibly by Arachne); now Peter Parker has just told her "I'm Spider-man!" when she suddenly is grabbed...
Overall, I was left with the impression that they most definitely did many tweaks, some big, some small, with the overall net effect of definite, engaging improvement. It worked to me, it was entertaining, and feels finished. It's not perfect, but the audience left entertained and (judging from some conversations I overheard), perplexed by all the negative press. But to each their own ... - Robjohn
Although I really did not like this show, reviews that oppose your opinion aren't WRONG, they're just different. The OP had every right to go and enjoy this show!
And, on another note, it's nice to know that before they really do much substantial changing to the show, that they're at least tightening it for those who go while it's still in this form. It really lagged when I saw it, and quickening the pace would improve some of it, I'm sure.
Also, re: Deeply Furious (if the question of what's going on during that number wasn't already sufficiently answered for you), to the best of my memory, when I saw it, Arachne started out the number in the "Astral Plane" and sang the opening, then went offstage, and her "Furies" put shoes on all 8 of their legs and danced, which involved them using their hands to lift their fake legs up and down. Then Arachne returned at the end of the number in "human form".
"Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos."-Stephen Sondheim
Wow, the level to which you don't get it is astonishing. This isn't "toy" theatre. The problems with Spider-man was that it was TOO intellectual...what with its take on Greek mythology, the poetry, the challenging music. Theatre—especially musical theatre—has to have an immediate impact. People want catchy sugarpop to sing on the subway home, not the often-challenging music that U2 writes. The mistake they made was using a children's story to convey not just grown-up, but pretty high-brow themes with songs whose payoff comes only after a few listens.
It was a mistake that I've been told is being corrected.
The problem with the show is not that it was too intellectual, just that it tried to be and failed because Julie Taymor doesn't know anything about telling a story. She could learn a lot from the best of the Marvel comics.
Wait, bardolph -- you're saying that STOTD is too smart for audiences? That's the problem? I doubt it.
I do think Taymor was trying to inject another layer into the Spiderman story (the mythological aspect), but she's just not a storyteller, so she failed.
You guys are rooting for a Broadway that I doubt you'd like much if it comes wholly to fruition.
Isn't it kind of a moot point if Spider-man is even good as it currently is when it's been made clear that this is going to shut down for some kind of rewriting/new songs/restaging in a few weeks and then re-start previews all over?
Don't get me wrong, I do find the take of people who've seen it (particularly more than once) interesting but if you absolutely love or hate the show as it is right now it's probably NOT going to be the same show that goes on in June (or whenever this is supposed to open now.)
2010: Next to Normal (May 25), Hair (Jun 9), American Idiot (Sep 10), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Sep 26), The Scottsboro Boys (Oct 17), Fela! (Nov 14), Next to Normal (Dec 30)
2011: That Championship Season (Feb 15), La Cage Aux Folles (Mar 16), The Book of Mormon (Mar 16), Anything Goes (Mar 30)