Spiderman Preview Thread!- Page 11

[Katurian2]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:51pm

So the villains weren't heavily featured other than Green Goblin and Arachne? What? A SHOE SONG. Please elaborate!

[finebydesign]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:51pm

ugh those bwayjoe are big spoilers..
anyway saw this:

joedrape (twitter) Saw Spiderman on Bway tonite: Promising but needs work. 1st act slow. 2nd act is beautiful, but ends on whimper. Music OK, They are trying.
less than a minute ago via web

[dancinfan]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:52pm

Taymor is certainly not known for her work with book and score. Lion King was Hamlet and was an existing screenplay, after all. And when a "musical" like this has a confused book and score, it's not much more than a circus.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:53pm

I thought Swarm had a bigger part than just the fashion show...

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:57pm

"ShentonStage
Tonight's audience "on side"; only one major heckle at 2nd act breakdown, & short slow handclap. Future audiences may not be so forgiving,."

So I guess Riedel was there after all.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:58pm

"certainly not known for her work with book and score"

She may not be known for her "book" work but she has written quite a bit.

Frida
Across the Universe
Fools Fire
Grendal

and has adapted a list of Shakespeare and other theatre pieces for stage and screen.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:58pm

11 pages and nary a word on the performances...vocally? acting? Or is that all kind of a moot point?

Updated On: 11/28/10 at 10:58 PM

[SNAFU]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:58pm

Be prepared... Like Across the Universe the producers are going to lean hard on Julie to change stuff. Julie will refuse and a battle will ensue.
I am sure there are very nervous investors out there tonight scouring the web for the first word of mouth.

[Cosmic Explorer]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:58pm

ok, I have no idea what I just witnessed. It was a total incoherent mess. taymor seems to have gotten so caught up in the symbolism and fx that she forgot to include a story. innovative at times, but soulless always. I'll write more later but now i need a drink to clear my head.

[blaxx]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:58pm

I know it's suspension of disbelief,but how many cables hold Spider-Man? It looks ridiculous.

They might as well have used a cherry picker to lift him at the end of the first act.

[jennafan]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 10:59pm

Broadway Joe seems to like posting spoilers all over the place...


Please STOP! Updated On: 11/28/10 at 10:59 PM

[LoLsmileyFace]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:02pm

whats the fashion show?????

[rorschach37]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:07pm

Nah, blaxx, they have the Green Goblin on cherry picker singing about how no one, not even Spider-Man is going to bring him down. End of Act One.

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:09pm

Sorry about the spoilers. If a mod wants to edit it for me go ahead. None of it made any sense anyway so its not a real turning point in the story its a umm wtf just happened moment. And yes the archane sings about shoes and they have a pile of shoes for her and she puts high heels on all of her legs. Some of the stupidest **** ive ever seen. The performances can barely be judged cause everything they have to work with is so bad.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:11pm

· RIALTO CHATTER: SPIDER-MAN Completes First Preview-Nobody Died

[blaxx]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:12pm

Nah, blaxx, they have the Green Goblin on cherry picker singing about how no one, not even Spider-Man is going to bring him down. End of Act One.

Oh, then he should get a flying bubble. But not 345 wires.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:15pm

Jennifer Danmarino should get to be in the bubble!

[CapnHook]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:17pm

- The set, costumes, lighting, and sound will all be nominated for Tonys. Set and costumes is a front-winner to win.

- The flying sequences are amazing, but even after they get all the bugs out, I feel that they ultimately will stop the story and the show dies. We'll see...

- I sat in the balcony. There is an entrance from a character that flies from the balcony to the stage. It took four stagehands to get the actor in the place. The actor wears a large costume. It was SO distracting. I have no clue what happened on stage preceding that entrance, because I couldn't keep my eyes off the stagehands and actor getting into place.

- Not that any of this matters. People going to the show pay for the spectacle and the music. Screw the story. Plot? What plot?

- Oh. Plot. Right. That thing that supposedly was there but only Julie Taymor could understand because she wrote it in her alien language on her alien planet. ACT I was understandable. ACT II was bizarre. It was completely lost. The show is meant to be meaningful, I guess...?

- The actors were all fine. Natalie Mendoza is the only stand-out. I usually don't care for Patrick Page, but I loved him in this. Reeve Carney and Jennifer Damiano have beautiful voices but do not have any arc to their characters. Their characters have polar opposite transitions (in regards to growth) but we do not see that journey.

- The show was stopped 5-6 times. During one of those times in the second act, a woman in the audience screamed out (at least what I think was:) "I don't know about anybody else, but I feel like a guinea pig and I want my money back! We should all get refunds!" The audience booed her. Another time the show was stopped right at the Act I Finale "stunt" and the Spider-Man performer was above the audience. Trapped. Stagehands walked on stage and he swayed and they reached over the orchestra to try and grab him. Took 3 attempts. Audience laughed.

- The score was OK/Good. It is difficult to tell if the songs are too long, or if it just happened to feel that way due to the long transitions.

- Spotted in the audience: Sean Hayes, Kevin Chamberlain, Bernard Telsey, Christian Campbell, Michael Reidel, and Casey Nicholaw.

- The show is not a complete mess. There is SOMETHING there. Let's hope that the Preview period doesn't become just about the technical but also about the substance.

[rorschach37]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:18pm

Does this mean Mary Jane and Norman Osborn were once friends? And they fought over Peter Parker's affection?

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:20pm

Mark Shenton has already posted a blog entry: http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2010/11/spider-man-turns-on-the-lights/index.html

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:22pm

Thanks for the report, CapnHook. The Act II has sounded like a real mess for a while; I still haven't heard about any real story details from it. Is it just villains parading around and this weird new Spider-Lady singing about shoes?

[Anakela]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:24pm

Message boards and Twitter were abuzz throughout the show, noting that there were 4 technical stops in Act 1, and 1 in Act 2 as well as an elongated intermission, but the show as performed from beginning to end.

(I am assuming that the 'as' of 'as performed' is supposed to be a 'was') Is this Rialto Chatter piece actually giving praise to the fact that the show was performed from beginning to end? Yes, it's a first preview, but isn't a show being performed from beginning to end sort of an assumed here? Like, the bare minimum of requirements of a first preview?
RIALTO CHATTER: SPIDER-MAN Completes First Preview

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:28pm

Spotted in the audience: ...Michael Reidel ...

Can't wait to see Reidel's column this week!

[BroadwayPhan]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:34pm

I'll refrain from posting any major spoilers (post a bit long)...

The show started about 25 minutes late (around 6:55pm) and last until around 10:15 or so. That included a prolonged intermission and a number of stoppages (probably around 2-5 minutes each) during the show. I think there were 3-4 stoppages in the first act and 2 stoppages in the second act.

Thought visually the show was excellent. Sets are very creative, with an excellent use of perspective. Particularly liked the use of the sets that opened up kind of like a pop-up book. In the first act, it was nice to see how sets could be done differently compared to more traditional set designs, and without using an overwhelming amount of projections that many shows are using now. The set at the end of the first act was spectacular.

Flying/special effects sequences were very effective...the flying I thought was infinitely better than the attempts made in Tarzan. It's a multi-directional mechanism that is a bit like the "eye in the sky" cameras above the fields at key sporting events. I did think that the visuals were stronger in the first half than the second, as the second act used more video. The second act seemed to have less energy than the first act (also less flying).

That being said...the show has some problems. The biggest is in its book. The first act starts VERY slowly, with a good chunk of the first 40 minutes documenting how Peter Parker ultimately becomes Spiderman. The second act plot seemed a bit empty and confusing. The show ended somewhat with a thud. I think a problem was the lack of character development. I didn't seem to care enough about the relationship between Mary Jane and Peter.

Casting-wise...Patrick Page was very good as the Green Goblin. Reeve Carney was just ok as Peter...but thought it was a bit disappointing he didn't do many of the stunts/flying...I presume they were done by doubles. Just imagine if they had to use a double for the boys in Billy Elliot for all the dancing. Jenn Damiano, who has lots of talent, seemed like wasted talent as Mary Jane - mostly due to the lack of great/captivating material given to her. She stood out much more in Next to Normal. In many ways, the role of Mary Jane is a much smaller role than I thought.

Lastly, while I'm not too familiar with U2's music, I was underwhelmed by the score. Nothing too memorable from the first round of listening - but maybe that might change for the better after repeat hearings (as they often do for me).

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:35pm

"Mark Shenton has already posted a blog entry"

Shenton. That idiot who wrote a column based almost entirely on this board and our troll kyle4 instead of actually writing something about WotV? What a waste of bandwidth. The blog linked to mostly speaks of his trouble getting to the show yet coyly says nothing about the show. I'm not sure I believe he was actually there and wasn't cribbing off of twitter, but in any case, that article said nothing at all that we didn't already know. What a lazy freakin' writer.
Updated On: 11/28/10 at 11:35 PM