skygiants

So some of you may remember that time that innerbrat, 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.