Spider-Man … on Broadway?!

I don’t know who came up with the harebrained idea of turning Spider-Man into a Broadway musical. But for some reason – that must be equal parts egotistical and masochistic – Tony Award-winning director Julie Taymor of Lion King fame eventually teamed up with rock-n-roll übermenschen Bono and The Edge of U2 to stage it under the too-clever-by-half title Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.  (I guess the folks behind the Batman movie franchise had already copyrighted “Dark Knight”.)

Indeed, such is the star power behind this Spidey production that 60 Minutes ran a feature on Sunday night marveling at the behind-the-curtain infrastructure – with its high-tech gadgetry – that have made it (at $65 million) the most expensive production in Broadway history. 

But as I sat watching this shameless TV ad masquerading as an objective report, I exclaimed that this Spider-Man seemed like a big turkey – no doubt aided in this choice of metaphor by the Thanksgiving meal that was still digesting in my big tummy.

I damned it for its utter lack of creativity and suggested that it was bound to get tangled up in its own web of self-indulgence. I even wondered aloud what, apart from the U2 score, would distinguish this production from the very impressive Cirque Du Soleil shows (like Mystère and KÀ) that have been wowing audiences with Spider-Man-like flights, fights, and aerial acrobatics since 1993.

This led to my final exclamation that it has all of the makings of a Broadway Ishtar – a reference to the 1987 movie starring acting übermenschen Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman that ranks one of the most expensive flops in Hollywood history. It was so bad in fact that it damaged the box-office appeal of Beatty and Hoffman irreparably, and effectively ended the career of its director, Elaine May.

Little did I know however that, at that very moment, when I was sitting on my couch shouting thumbs-down exclamations at my television set, people were sitting in the Foxwoods Theatre on West 42nd Street watching this Broadway show and whispering similar exclamations.  For Sunday night also marked the opening of preview shows for Spider-Man. No doubt the producers thought this was a rather serendipitous bit of timing given the feature on 60 Minutes.

Unfortunately, the actual performance on Broadway made a mockery of this brilliant marketing ploy. In fact, here’s how the New York Times began its very influential review, which was published almost immediately, perhaps, to put the producers out of their misery:

All $65 million of the new Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark took flight on Sunday night at its first preview performance, but not without bumps. The show stopped five times, mostly to fix technical problems, and Act I ended prematurely, with Spider-Man stuck dangling 10 feet above audience members, while Act II was marred by a nasty catcall during one of the mid-performance pauses.

To be fair, though, this is what previews are for: to work out the bugs (pun intended) before the real opening night, which in this case is scheduled for January 11, 2011.  But there’s no gainsaying what a bad omen it is that a Broadway show of this magnitude, in every respect, performed so poorly (even on the opening night of previews) that the admittedly low-brow New York Post felt justified in beginning its review as follows:

Last night’s opening preview of Broadway’s most expensive production ever, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, was an epic flop as the $65 million show’s high-tech gadgetry went completely awry amid a dull score and baffling script, theatergoers griped. Stunned audience members were left scratching their heads over the confusing plot – when they weren’t ducking for cover from falling equipment and dangling actors.

But I’m not prepared to call it an epic flop … just yet. For I’m all too mindful that a flawless performance on opening night in  January could inspire reviews that are as glowing as these ones are damning.  And that alone would guarantee Spider-Man a long and very profitable run on Broadway.

In fact, my critical wrath had nothing to do with the quality of the production; after all, I was reacting only to its buildup on 60 Minutes. Instead, my stentorian outrage was incited by watching the producers talk about spending so much money in this redundant fashion (in these hard times) and calling it visionary entertainment.  And a flawless performance on opening night will do little to quell it.

Hell, original plays on Broadway are already an endangered species.  So just imagine what the success of this show will breed: a great white way populated with nothing but musical productions about comic-book heroes.  That’s entertainment?!