Saw the Sunday 1/2 evening performance. To the person who had the insert in the playbill, they must've given you one from the matinee because my playbill did not have an insert and that was Reeve on stage.
I still don't know what to feel about this show. I feel like visually I loved the set and how cartoonish it was. I thought everyone in the production was incredibly talented and while the score wasn't really my taste (not much of a U2 fan) even that didn't bother me. Obviously, the flying was pretty cool and that went off without a hitch for my performance.
Before I type the rest, I will say I refrained from talking about Spider-Man before I saw it because: a.) I have a low post count and b.) I was actually giving it the benefit of the doubt and was SUPER excited to go see it.
That said... I still can't figure out what bothered me. While T.V. Caprio was incredibly amazing as an actress and singer, I couldn't help but groan every time she came on stage. Her story line from the beginning seemed odd and misplaced and like they inserted it just to show a new costume or have a song in the story. In the end her purpose became more clear (after thinking about it) but still, it seemed very drawn out. What I took away was she controlled all spiders and since Peter Parker is half spider, she could have some control on him too. It was as if she chose him to receive the bite (fate) because she made that spider bite him. I don't know if Athena made her the way she was so she would find no man (they only briefly mention this) at the beginning. So I may be inserting too much... and that isn't what the story if supposed to do. Also, it gave me an awkward moment where he's "dreaming" of her and I had two very small children in front of me. I looked to my cousin as if to say "are they supposed to be having sex" when the next line was "inside of me." Sure, the children didn't get it, but it was very uncomfortable.
I will admit I went mostly to check it out and because I love Jennifer Damiano. I feel as if the Mary Jane plot line was an after thought. When listening to Damiano say we get to see more of Mary Jane, I thought we actually saw less. She was pretty much standard and only showed up a little bit.
I'm not even a Spider-Man fan but I think if it took more of a purist approach to it, we'd have a better story that could've used all of the same spectacle. It should have been all about the Green Goblin - and songs like "I'll Take Manhattan" which I expected to be a big number to end the act was merely a little song before that quick to end scene.
I edited this because I read the person who did the review from 1/4. They pointed out many of the inconsistencies I saw with the show in a more eloquent way. One that bothered me is Spider-Man and Green Goblin are on top of the building, we are looking down, yet they fall up it into a pit? And the way they explain having this effect? The kids (our "Greek Chorus) just go "Well, that's cant happen."
(P.S. - I don't know who said this on here but I read before that during the ugly pageant it was basically Julie Taymor visually masturbating in front of us. I could not shake this thought the entire beginning of Act 2. Thanks.)
Updated On: 1/5/11 at 05:59 PM