skygiants | (no subject)

So some of you may remember that time that

wickedtrue and I went to go see SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK. This was an experience that affected us all deeply. Debi, Heather and I now share a special bond. No matter what may happen in our lives going forward, we can never escape the fact that we were The People Who Actually Went And Saw SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK.

I tell you this because a few weeks ago, I was in the NYU bookstore and I saw onsale a full stack of copies of a bright red and blue book labeled Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History.

Now, it just so happened that I had a gift certificate to the NYU bookstore, and I knew immediately what I had to do. WE ALL NEEDED A COPY OF THIS BOOK.

(Okay, actually I only bought two copies, mailed one to Debi, and then read the other one before delivering it to Heather. Debi had already complained that I should have bought a paperback, the better to fling across the room. "Heather," I said, "I'm going to give you a present that will make you angry. I'M SORRY IN ADVANCE.")

Song of Spider-Man was written by Glen Berger, aka Julie Taymor's writing partner for the script, aka the The Least Famous Guy Involved In This Musical, and boy, does he know it. I knew this book was going to be as amazing a trainwreck as the show when I hit the first scene, a highly dramatized confrontation between Taymor and Berger on opening night.

Berger describes this as a panel from an "emo-manga" (WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN) with himself, the bewildered and tormented hero, and a thought bubble over his head:

I loved her. I still do.
With heart-scarred bewilderment, I love her.
And the thing of it is ...
she despises me.

READER, I DIED LAUGHING.

What follows is basically the tragic love story of Glen Berger and Magical Pixie Dream Director Julie Taymor, interspersed with cameos from Bono, the Edge, and various producers, executives, and staff people of varying levels of competence.

Things that Julie Taymor brought to the show: a deep love of Arachne.
Things that Glen Berger brought to the show: a deep love of Julie Taymor.

Things that, apparently, nobody involved felt like they needed to bring to the show:

- a working knowledge of Broadway musicals
- a working knowledge of the Spiderman mythology beyond the Sam Raimi films
- more than three meetings between all the collaborators
- a budget
- an out-of-town preview period to make sure the show was any good
- a full dress rehearsal
- a safety standard to deal with the giant pit in the middle of the stage
- an actual finale

Glen Berger does his level best to defend most of the expenditures as a combination of well-intentioned hubris and bad luck. They were willing to make cuts! They completely agreed it was unnecessary for the Green Goblin to have three evil science silo towers! TWO WAS A-OK! Still, there is nothing to give you the sense of stupidly-spent money like the description of a remote-controlled robot bed that just WOULD NOT WORK RIGHT and kept zooming away in the wrong direction as Spider-Man attempted to flop dramatically onto it. I LAUGHED UNTIL I CRIED. Or maybe I cried until I laughed. Why did they need a remote-controlled robot bed? NOBODY KNOWS.

(GLEN BERGER: No, but the plot would have made sense if only anybody had been able to come up with the 3-D holograph technology we were sure would exist by 2011!)

Debi has written up a much better, more thorough critique of both the book and the process, which you all should go read. All I can tell you is that, for sheer entertainment value, the use of a gift certificate to buy this book was money WELL SPENT.

(AND SHE DESPISES ME!!!! I'm sorry, I can't, I will keep laughing forever.)

Also, I will say, having read this book, I am actually ten times as impressed that the performance we saw -- which was during the period when people were breaking their backs and getting concussions left and right -- proceeded technically without a hitch. Unless the fact that Arachne never had the right number of legs was in fact a technical hitch. WHO KNOWS.

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. . . it sounds like quite the book.

(About, you know, quite the trainwreck of a vaguely musical-shaped thing.)

I'm a little afraid now I'm going to fall down a vortex of making-of musical tell-all books. There's one about the trainwreck that was Big on Broadway! There's one about Follies! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO RESIST.

Clearly, you are not supposed to resist.

You are supposed to read them.

And then tell us about them.

That's not very helpful. >:(

. . . sorry?

AND THUS THE TO-READ LIST GROWS EVER LONGER.

Oh well, at least it'll help with my resolution to read more nonfiction?

The way I see it, if your To-Read list is growing ever shorter, you're doing something wrong, really.

So I think you're good!

Wow. I might read that too. I just read the short kindle book about why Merrily We Roll Along flopped.

How was it? What's it called?

It was shorter and less plot-y than I expected, which was slightly disappointing. It was enjoyable to read in a 'rooting for a bunch of kids who almost get their dream' way, and slightly sad for the same reasons. It's called Showstopper and has the logo of Merrily on the cover.

Yeah, I feel like that would be kind of sad. Unlike with Spider-man, where you can see it coming from ten miles away, there's nothing about Merrily that inherently deserves to flop.

....

can i please borrow this book sometime

YES YOU CAN >:D I mean, the Stateside copy is in Boston right now but I am sure Heather will be more than willing to share the ~~pain~~ ~~joy~~ whatever you want to call it.

ahaha, yes!!! i plan to read it once i close my own show. you can have it after!

OH MY GOD I desperately want to read this now. I never got to see the musical (we'll always have Vegas?) but honestly, I feel like the TRAINWRECK that is the making of it is probably more entertaining than the actual show?

I mean, both the book and the show were pretty hilarious life experiences, but one of them didn't cost a hundred dollars ... SO I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT ONE.

Things that, apparently, nobody involved felt like they needed to bring to the show

This is possibly even better than reading a review.

This is the only situation ever, possibly, in which the addition of Frank Wildhorn might have helped.

*dies laughing*

That would be an amazing thing to see in terms of what end product would come out.

I have to read this! It sounds hilarious - the theatrical equivalent of Men Who Stare At Goats, the nonfictional account of an equally well-planned and carefully thought-out plan, using only the most qualified and well-suited personnel, by the American military to create psychic soldiers who could kill goats with their brains.

Oh man, yes, PLEASE READ IT. It's incredibly entertaining and I would LOVE to read your write-up.

WHERE IS THE SCAN OF THE EMO-MANGA THOUGH

TRAGICALLY, the emo-manga panel doesn't really exist. It's just a description of the emo-manga panel that he WOULD draw, if he were to depict the scene in the way that it REALLY deserved.

So he even half-asses his own drama? No wonder Julie hasn't called.

HEART-SCARRED?????

DIRECT. QUOTE.

IN HIS ACTUAL PUBLISHED BOOK ABOUT A REAL HUMAN HE KNOWS IN PERSON????

A REAL HUMAN. WHO IS NOT HIS (ACTUAL, EXISTENT) WIFE. AND WHO HAS IN FACT ALREADY SUED HIM!!!

ON WHAT PLANET IS THAT APPROPRIATE AND NOT EXACTLY WHY SHE ISN'T TALKING TO HIM ANYMORE???

With heart-scarred bewilderment, I love her.

OH MY GOD.

Just read this. It's amazing. I'm not sure what my favorite part is- the emo-manga shot you describe is great, but I also loved the bit where he claims that J. Jonah Jameson is like a commedia dell'arte character and therefore Julie Taymor will be great at directing for him because she's an expert at commedia. And the part where the choreographer has an 'unmistakably heterosexual vibe'. So much unintentional comedy.

Also the bit buried at the end of the afterward about how Julie Taymor has in fact called him back now, but it was too late for him to edit the manuscript, so he's going to have to trust that she'll understand that he was just being honest in the book when he described her as an inflexible psycho bitch control freak.