Spiderman: Turn off the Dark

[scarlet]

"Turn off the Dark"? When I first heard this title (about 2 years ago, now, I believe), I wondered what it meant. As the show got closer and closer to reality, I continued to wonder. And now, after seeing the show, I'm still wondering. I THINK it has something to do with Arachne's being condemned to live in the darkness and her hope that Peter Parker will set her free. Or maybe not. I'm not sure about much about this show. And I felt like the creators weren't too sure either. That they weren't sure what story they wanted to tell or exactly how they wanted to tell it. The show changes styles multiple times throughout the first act, and the tone of the first and second act are so completely different that I felt I was watching 2 different shows.

Even the beginning of the show confused me. We start with Spidey standing on a bridge as Mary Jane hangs from a rope. A big cardboard cut out of the Green Goblin cuts the rope, MJ falls and we go black. Enter 4 teens (3 male, 1 female), who discuss what happened next. But then they decide to go back to the beginning and discuss the origin of Spidey. Our lone female drags a huge book out of her bag, and starts talking about Arachne. Who is Arachne, you ask? She's a character from Greek mythology who was turned into a spider by the gods after being a better weaver than Athena. The musical's version of the story has Arachne hanging herself, but instead being turned into a spider and condemned to the above mentioned eternal darkness. The Arachne scene was enjoyable, and used a nice flying effect (more on those later), but I was wondering what the point was. Oh, then I got what I think was the point. We cut from Arachne's transformation to a Queens High School {note to the set designer, NYC high schools have HS numbers, not PS numbers) where one Peter Parker is giving a talk on the Greek myth. The show goes on to tell the origin story of Spiderman (with some annoying changes to the "normal" version, including Arachne's creating his suit), and his nemesis, Norman Osborne (a geneticist who becomes transformed into the Green Goblin). Act one ends with Spidey, the Green Goblin and MJ falling from the Chrysler Building. Well, that would have made a great ending in my opinion. Nice story line. Spidey gets bit, learns responsibility and saves MJ from the Goblin. But no, we have a second act. Act two starts with the Geek chorus discussing villains and wastes more time with a catwalk number showcasing the villians. Peter tries to balance crime fighting and real life, but turns his back on his Spidey powers after finding himself unable to live a normal life. This irritates Arachne to the point that she plunges the world into a blackout and resurrects some of the villains that Spidey vanquished. Or maybe not. Ultimately, Peter confronts Arachne (in a scene ripped right from Phantom of the Opera), and rescues Mary Jane. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except Arachne, who is now really dead, and the Green Goblin who went splat and Peter's Uncle Ben, hit by a car, and MJ's first boyfriend who just vanished midway through Act 1 and J. Jonah Jameson, who just is not a happy person.

The show is a musical, so it might be helpful to discuss the music. Well, the music is nice and has a good rock beat to it, but for the most part is forgettable. As to the lyrics, most of them were unintelligible. In my opinion, the sets were the best part of the show. There were a number of large set pieces in act one, and good use of video projection screens in act two. Reeve Carney as Spiderman was okay, but the padding on his suit was pretty obvious. Also, I felt his voice was very strained and not pleasant. Jennifer Damiano as Mary Jane was okay, but just that. Patrick Page was fun as Norman/Green Goblin and Micheal Mulhern was appropriately snarky as Jameson. Best of the lot was T.V. Carpio as Arachne, she was fun to watch.

Now to the flying effects. Let me say, that spectacle for spectacle's sake does not impress me. And after a while, the flying effects of this show just bored me. I watched the on-stage guitar player (and don't ask me why there was a guitar and bass player stage left) more than the flying. My biggest problem with the flying effect was that it looked like they were staging Superman, not Spiderman. All he would do was lift his arm and off he'd go. No jump, no nothing. Just up he goes. Fortunately, there were no incidents at this performance, although one of the aerialists did have trouble on a landing.

All in all, I'm not sorry I went, but am a bit sorry that I paid full price for these tickets. Especially since when I bought the tickets they were for post opening, but are now still preview.

[Jo]

Thank you for the review! Scarlet

[safira]

Thank you for the review!
Doesn´t sound like a "must have seen" at all.

[minesayrejoice]

Yuck. I've gone from "don't care" to "don't want to see it".

[santtu]

Having seen this show (finally!) I totally agree with scarlett. It is like watching two different shows in one performance. There is a connection between Acts I and II but not very strong or clever one.

The basic story which is referred to in the show's title, is about the 'Spider-Woman' Arachne and her desire and longing to finally be set free from her curse. And for that she needs Pete Parker/Spider-man.

I'm not going to go into the story of the show, scarlet already explained it well.

I found the visual side of the show astonishing, but a bit confusing. Just like the story, the design is also like watching two different shows. I preferred the 'comic-book style' of the Act I to the high-tec-video-screen-rock-concert style of the Act II - although the projections and video images did look great. I particularly enjoyed the final scene of Act which took place at the top of the Chrysler Building, and the point of view shifted to the direct view from the sky to the 42nd street! I'm not sure I liked the cardboard cut-outs here and there though. There were some extremely beautiful scenes, like the Arachne's first song where we see her weaving and eventually be turned into a spider.

Musically the show is forgettable. There wasn't a single song that stood out. And though this is not a juke-box musical, I did find the Spider-Man's flying theme extremely similar to U2's hit "Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me" from that Batman movie. I was just waiting for someone to start singing the vocal part of that song's chorus, the melody was so similar. And the point of having the guitar player (Pete Parker/Spidey's actor Reeve Carney's brother by the way...) and the bass player on stage was...?!?! I just didn't see the need for that.

Choreography was very modern. Very 'street'. Fitted the show very well. I particularly enjoyed the choreography in the scene "The boy falls from the sky" where we have Parker running and singing and behind him there's one male dancer dressed in the Spidey costume dancing this slow movement choreography. The video screens are moving and behind them we get more and more dancers in Spidey costume doing the same choreography until there's about a dozen Spideys on stage. But then, unfortunately, the choreography changes to faster and starts to remind some kung-fu moves.

I found the aerial stunts impressive and very well executed. Thank goodness they got the Foxwoods theatre for the show, which has a lot of space between the stage and the mezzanine. Otherwise the aerials would look pathetic.

But the main problem, for me, was the story. The characters are one-dimensional, you just don't care about them much. And the final confrontation... Oh, please!! First you have one character trying to kill the other, and after minutes of this there's a sudden change in style "oh, you love her! Then go and be happy". It felt too easy and too cheesy. Like they had to cut something to make the show shorter and this scene was the only one where they found something to cut. It just doesn't work.

In short, visually astonishing show but the story and the score just won't live up to the expectations.