Spiderman Preview Thread! — Page 24

Here's my take on the score. If the lyrics aren't popping out, the actors can be told to enunciate more (oh, how annoying it is to whack the "rock means you don't have to enunciate" taste out of a young actor's mouth) and the sound mix can be adjusted. If the melodies are too simple, some basic harmonies can be added in relatively painlessly to spice it up at key moments. If the music sounds repetitive, the arrangements can be adjusted (it's a rock band in the pit so effect pedals and acoustic instruments might add some needed variety as well). These are all things that don't mess around with the flying, fights, and set design. I have a feeling these kinds of change will happen when they get all the techy stuff running smooth (well, the sound design can probably be fixed sooner).

The book is a bigger challenge. If it is still confusing after they smooth out the technical issues, they might need to rewrite or add dialogue to better tell the story. I get that the flight sequences are computerized, but someone is surely pressing the "go" button rather than HAL 9000 launching the harnesses at the same time every night whether the actors are in them or not. A few lines here and there won't kill the stagecraft. These smaller changes may not fix the plot problems, but they can at least ensure everyone understands the show.

The show wouldn't have ended by now.

I truly hope this show has a productive preview period. The media has been so harsh on the show that I hope Taymor and Bono and the rest of the creative team pull through and have a successful show. While many here do not like Taymor, you have to give her credit. She is a visionary and she takes risks. She sometimes fails in what she is trying to achieve but don't they say that art evokes strong feelings. Taymor dreamt big with spiderman and is trying to achieve something huge. I hope she reworks the score and book because I do agree up until now she has been style over content. I don't think it her carelessness that causes this, I think it is just something she doesn't have enough experience with. Everytime I see her talk about her projects, I see passion and she does talk about the story and score a lot. I think she will keep evolving as director and learn more but I do think she needs some help in helping her ideas for the book come to fruition.

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How do you guys feel about rock musicals and not being able to understand what people are saying? I know American Idiot was popular, but that was a crazy show that was hard for me to understand. I wonder how much of the Spider-Man score is clear/audible.

I loved "Spring Awakening" at The Atlantic. Saw the tour in a big house. Still enjoyed it but not as much. I avoided it on Broadway as I wanted to remember the impact it had in a smaller house.

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"Most non-Broadway centric people have never heard of Follies, either. Doesn't mean it's obscure."

Actually, Mister Matt, that's actually what obscurity means.

It's an obscure reference to a an obscure show that the average person walking down the street of Kansas, Ohio or Indiana would have no idea of what you were talking about. Broadway shows and actors and composers are not exactly common knowledge for most of America. The average citizen would not know what "Follies" is nor do they know who this Stephen Sondheim person is, nor do they care. We of the Broadway community and the fans of Broadway have an inflated perspective view of our place in society and pop culture.

Broadway "Fame" means "fame" in a very small community. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm saying that it is reality.

"I'm a big fan of Taymor's work — as a designer. It's when she puts on her director's hat that she runs into trouble..."

I couldn't agree more, the most questionable additions to the show (like say the whole greek mythology angle and making "Arachne" the star of the show) have "Taymor run amok" written all over them.

Her costume designs... well that's a whole other problem. They're characters from a COMIC BOOK- they started out brightly colored and visually interesting and didn't need her "help", her take on several of them is just far too bizarre (dragonfly green goblin I am looking at YOU!)

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Well the buzz just hit our local news in Denver. They called the first preview a "disaster" with bad "reviews".

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Remember shows with long preview periods

Legs Diamond
Nick & Nora
Golden Rainbow

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"Her costume designs... well that's a whole other problem. They're characters from a COMIC BOOK- they started out brightly colored and visually interesting and didn't need her "help", her take on several of them is just far too bizarre (dragonfly green goblin I am looking at YOU!"

Eiko Ishioka is the costume designer not Taymor.

I want to know how they plan to break all of this down and tour it domestically or internationally. If they can't even get the tech working with all the original operators here, how are they going to move it about? It seemed a large portion of the anticipated profits from this were based from other productions stemming from it.

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*If* they do an arena tour (which IIRC is all that's been mentioned thus far and would make the most sense, given the U2 fan base), it'd probably be less flashy technicals and more U2 music cranked up to 11 on the volume bar. Spidey would fly, but not to the extent here.

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