Spider-Man 2.0 Reviews, Critic Awards, Budget & Social Media "Villainy" — Page 5

Also, Jennifer Damiano for BEST ACTRESS TONYS next year? She's been getting good reviews!

No, Jennifer Damiano for Best Actress in A Musical Ever TONYS.

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Okay, the stories I'm reading about Taymor's appearance at tonight's opening make her seem like a real trooper. My hat's off to her.

The Record (NJ)(Robert Feldberg) thought it was better, but still not good:
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/123894879_Theater_review___Spider-Man__Turn_Off_the_Dark_.html

Variety's Steven Suskin pipes up at Mixed to Negative describing the show as mediocrity and lacking flavor:

"...flavor is what "Spider-Man" now lacks.

Tuner proceeded without a technical glitch at a press preview...significantly less exciting flying than remembered. ...first-time viewers are likely to be impressed with the aerials, especially the over-your-head battle scenes. Also standing out are the eerily effective scenic design by George Tsypin; a grandly villainous turn by Patrick Page ("The Grinch"), in an expanded role as the Green Goblin; and an attractive performance by twenty-year-old Jennifer Damiano ("Next to Normal").

Leading the many negatives, though, is the ineffective score: Despite apparent rewrites, this remains the show's Achilles' heel. ...the dramaturgy is still muddled, only with more jokes. This is a show that rises to the occasion only when the actors of the ensemble are flying; when people start singing or talking, the momentum -- like the boy in the climactic second act song -- "falls from the sky."

Reeve Carney is effective in the title role, but customers should be warned that he doesn't appear at a quarter of the performances (on a schedule that seems not to be publicized to ticketbuyers). ...

...what was a sometimes inchoate mess has, thanks to the post-Taymor fixes, taken a giant leap to mediocrity, which makes for a significant improvement."
Variety

Michael Feingold of the Village Voice is Mixed leaning Negative:

[Argh. That tangled web cliche again.]

"...It's loud, and there's a lot of it. It has good points and bad points; the latter outnumber the former, but not to the extent that turns an ordinary bad musical into a train wreck. ...numerous aerial excursions...are its most exciting feature. ...

Beyond that, very little need be said...at least not about the show itself. ...
...
...the widespread attention it's garnered has been astonishing, true proof that the American cultural myth most deeply embedded in the world's mind is not the myth of the superhero or the frontiersman, but the notion that triumphing in a hit Broadway musical gives the ultimate in artistic credibility. While Spider-Man was undergoing its months of torment, accident, and delay, the media played it up as if the future...of all Western civilization, was hanging by a thread of Spidey's web. Hooray, I guess, for the theater's prestige.

Naturally, there's a catch: The definition of triumph involved centers purely on fame and money. Artistic meri--the assumption that a Broadway musical would attract world attention by adding something imaginative and exciting to world cultur--never really enters the picture.... While Taymor...was undergoing her well-reported travails with the production, commentators invariably cited her...success, The Lion King. Few noted the mixed response to her more recent, but noncommercial, works, like Grendel or the Met's Magic Flute; most had probably never heard of her masterpiece, Juan Darien. In the media mind, only the money arena and celebrity (which equals money) exist.

...No doubt eight-year-olds with a few hundred bucks to spare will enjoy themselves. The rest of us can hope that somebody, celebrity or not, will shortly create a better musical."
The Village Voice

Updated On: 6/16/11 at 01:20 PM

Now that the critics have been kind enough to weigh in, let's do them the courtesy of weighing back.

I have rated my top three reviews, not based on whether they liked the show or not, but on quality of writing and the service they have provided to theatre (rather than say, to the ticket buyers, which can be their goal) by their review.

--------- The nomdeplume Spiderman Criticism Awards ----------

First Prize: Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

For saving us an overdone recap of the show's reported melodrama, placing the show into a wider theatrical context desirous of poetry, offering writing that informs free from venom or romanticism which flows beautifully without stopping the reader to have to reread, and for the understated "damp squib" metaphor.

Second Prize: Michael Feingold, The Village Voice

For the thought-filled evaluation of Spider-Man in the context of a cultural perception of theatrical success as related to "fame and money" rather than "artistic merit" or "adding something imaginative and exciting to world culture" and for presenting Julie Taymor in the context of her other theatrical endeavors beyond The Lion King.

(Caveat: one tossed slushie for the overused "tangled web" metaphor in the header, if indeed Mr. Feingold wrote the caption, as sometimes editors grab their prerogative).

As an aside, as Taymor's Grendel was mentioned in this review, and here is a lengthy NDP write-up of Grendel on BWW, which your NDP called "the MUST SEE show of the season":

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=903907#2340311

Third Prize: Scott Brown, New York Magazine

For the attempt to reprise rococo style in theatrical review writing, purple prose with slips to hisses of Halloweenish metaphor ("aneurysm-in-progress," "carnival-of-the-damned," "shreddy," "lobotomized") yet underscoring a passionate desire that theatre contain a vision, or at least, an entertaining delusion.


Awards shall be paid out in an undisclosed number of gently used matchsticks in the year 2021. (I have a gas stove, you must wait.)

Your NDP shall refrain from the snarkiness of a Booby Prize, at least this time.

Anyone wishing to make their own assessments and awards, please feel free.

"As you probably don't know, nom, generally the critic does not create the headline for the reviews so perhaps you might give the best critic in New York a break for the tangled web reference?"

Should I criticize the failure to read this above:

"if indeed Mr. Feingold wrote the caption, as sometimes editors grab their prerogative"

Obviously I overlooked it since I chose his review out of many reviews.

Law & Order's "Hubris" may be a metaphorical review (though I have only seen this clip, not the whole episode) of the problem of direction throughout Spider-Man:

https://www.broadwayworld.com/videoplay.php?colid=249526

Recalling excerpts from this new NY Times article, such as:

'Ms. Taymor's comeback strategy so far has been a work in progress.
...
...speaking about her "Spider-Man" experiences...she chose not to defend herself or her artistic vision against criticism... Instead she expressed frustration that audience members and theater watchers did not let her work at her own pace or free from criticism, constructive or otherwise.

"Twitter and Facebook and blogging just trump you...It's very hard to create. It's incredibly difficult to be under a shot glass and a microscope like that."
...
"When you're trying to create new work, and you're trying to break new ground and experiment, which seems an incredibly crazy thing to do in a Broadway environment, the immediate answers that audiences give are never going to be good."

"...when you're doing something very new...audiences don't know how necessarily to talk about it immediately. Which in my world, and in your world, is a good thing. You want people to absorb, they should be entertained, they should have a great time, but they should also be stimulated enough that when they go home or talk to their kids, they are actually digesting, thinking, talking about it."

Her comments prompted one Twitter user, ccaggiano, to offer this riposte on Saturday: "Welcome to the 21st Century, Julie. How about slamming your own pretention [sic] and arrogance?"'

[nomdeplume note: what about taking responsibility for the consequences of one's own actions and learning from them? Is word of mouth from bloggers and others who have seen work in previews a place to direct blame? Lots of producers paper houses and offer discounts in previews to, beside other goals, get some word of mouth and response--are they all stupid and wrong to do so?]
Taymor Tries to Reclaim a Reputation

Updated On: 6/28/11 at 03:17 PM

Why didn't BWW update it's reviews for Spider Man?

No I mean on their review page they show the average rating. Spider-Man's is still the same from before previews. They didn't update the opening night reviews.

The Spider-Man NY Times article and the budget itself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/theater/spider-man-by-the-numbers-breaking-down-its-costs.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1308866697-hgX6+Mhdz6DtxV7uPOEp3Q

What other show budget has received this kind of attention?
The Budget

Teachout weighs in on Julie's pointing the finger at social media.

"Let's start with the self-serving part. Ms. Taymor seems to think that her attempt to create a groundbreaking work of theatrical art was sabotaged by a horde of philistines who just didn't get it.
...
...Musicals still get written by trial and error, and the public is a crucial part of the process. It can't be said often enough that theater is an empirical art form. It's about what work--and if audiences don't like a musical, then it doesn't work."
WSJ: Are Social Media the Villain...?

Updated On: 6/28/11 at 01:49 PM