Spider-Man: Turn On The Plot

Today was the first day of previews for Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the new broadway show by Julie Taymor (The Lion King) with music by U2's Bono and The Edge. I was happy to get tickets to see the first show, but I didn't quite realize it was a preview. Apparently, this means that the show is basically putting on a dress rehearsal, and using the audience to help see how to fine tweak and change things for the actual show. SO this show actually opens in January, so they do have about six weeks to fix things. And yes, there are quite a few things that need fixing, but a lot of good things as well.

The story basically follows the typical story of high schooler Peter Parker getting his spider powers, saving the day from the Green Goblin, and romancing Mary Jane. A few extra details were added this time around, however. First off, the story is told by these four kids, who seem to be creating the plot in their minds. As they come up with various elements of the story, we see these acted out on stage. Also, they incorporate an element of greek mythology, a lady called Arachne, throughout the story. More villans are also there, and they form the Sinister Six: Carnage, Kraven, Swarm, Electro, Lizard, and a new creation called Swiss Miss.

The story was by far the weakest element of the production. There was not much explanation between scenes, and I felt like to truly understand it, you needed to have seen the first two Spider-Man films. For instance, Peter likes Mary Jane, but she's with some other guy in high school. Later on, they're together and dating, and we don't really see the bridging scenes there. Likewise, we have Peter lose his powers later, and then gain them when the world needs spider-man again. This was explained decently, but I felt like I understood it more because of the movie. They need to work on having a more coherent plot.

The music was totally not catchy, at least not to me. I thought all the songs were from Bono and The Edge. However, on the playbill song list, only one song has that little asterisk, with a note on the bottom saying music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge. Makes it kind of dubious that the other songs are theirs, which may explain why they don't really sound too hot.

The acting was decent, with the best work being Norman Osborne, played by Patrick Page. They also made good use of these long, vertical screens on stage, which displayed spider webs, newspaper headlines, close-ups on the Green Goblin, and more. It really helped the mood of the various scenes of the show.

The best part, by far, were the aerial stunts. Spidey swang all across the audience, and up to the balcony. During the fights with Green Goblin, they were both swinging, and fighting, and it's something I haven't seen in a broadway show before. I feel like they hit this part just right. Arachne also flies through the audience. However, one drawback was that I was in a balcony seat, so for one scene she flew over the audience, but had to be prepped from the balcony. And she has a really big costume. So while watching the events on stage, we see four crew set up a platform and bring Arachne on stage, which was rather distracting. But I suppose there's no other way to avoid this.

Basically, I think this show has potential. It needs to work on the plot. And I understand that this was a preview, and the first one no less, but there were long breaks during the show. I believe these should be fixed by the end, and once the are, this can be a good show. The plot seriously needs the most work, and they should consider cutting down on the Arachne scenes, as they often were drawn out and unnecessary. Also, those kids telling the story later interacted with the characters in the story, which doesn't quite make sense. Once these things are worked out, this should could be stellar, just for the aerial work alone.