Judging by the discourse I've seen online regarding Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, a lot of so-called fans of Spidey are not ready to embrace a musical based on Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's most famous creation. They're even afraid of it, you might say. But that's often the problem with the fanboy proletariat -- they abhor change. The same might be said as well of the Broadway tastemakers who have been poo-pooing this show from day one.
Turn Off the Dark has its own fanboy contingent -- an onstage Geek Chorus who serve as a framing device and commentators in this variation on the familiar tale of Peter Parker. In fact, they open the show by dreaming up fan fiction about Peter. Much of it is derivative, seemingly culled (disappointingly) from the first two Sam Raimi movies, and muddled. This tells us, one supposes, that Taymor (of Broadway's The Lion King fame) should avoid fan-fic in general (shouldn't we all?) but also that she perhaps couldn't be bothered to research Spider-Man's story very far beyond popping in a couple of DVDs.
So what this means is that the first act of the show and some of act two is largely a rehash of the origin story, the run-ins with the mad Green Goblin, the love-affair-from-afar with Mary Jane, and the Spider-Man No More thread.
And yet, the circumstances of these plot points are conveyed in frequently new and exhilarating ways, as when Peter (an engaging Reeve Carney) awakens in his bedroom and realizes he can climb walls -- the walls literally bounce and move with him, while Carney sings (you guessed it) "Bouncing Off the Walls" -- or when Spidey has a showdown with the Green Goblin (Patrick Page) atop the Chrysler Building -- only this version of Norman Osborn is a sort of Wicked Witch of the South by way of Liberace (complete with piano tingling theatrics). He's grand.
That scene on top of the Chrysler Building also incorporates one of the many amazing set design pieces in the show, as Spidey must dive from the building to save the falling MJ (Jennifer Damiano, who is mostly concerned with falling throughout Turn Off the Dark's running time, her character being MJ and all). As he does so, the entire set turns and rotates and changes perspective so that we, the audience, are now looking directly down at the street below the skyscraper, complete with little bitty taxi cabs driving by, while Spider-Man takes care of business. We all know that our hero is going to save the day -- we've seen that part many times before -- but here Taymor and set designer George Tsypin present Spidey's theatrics in a way that this fan has never seen before. And I've seen a lot of Spider-Man in my time.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the show involves the character of Arachne, plucked right out of Greek mythology and inserted into the Spider-Man story. Turned into a spider-woman by the goddess Athena long ago, Arachne (T. V. Carpio) now exists in a kind of limbo, not alive and yet not dead. And she sees Peter, a fellow spider hybrid, as her chance at escaping from this state of un-life.
The problem with Arachne is that we just don't get enough of her. Taymor seems to feel the need to give us the familiar Spider-Man tropes -- the origin, the Green Goblin, even the Sinister Six, who show up in a madhouse audio-visual sequence as they take over the world that is another showstopper -- but she really appears to be more interested in Arachne's tale. It's a shame that Taymor didn't allow herself to just make the entire show about the Spidey/Arachne relationship. As it is, the character is mostly relegated to the second act.
As with the rest of the production's visuals and costumes, the look of Arachne is splendid. A flying arachnid with the body of a woman, she -- and her weaving accomplices the Furies -- almost manages to steal the spotlight when it comes to the most-talked-about aspects of this show, the flying stunts. In short, the aerial action is thrilling if not as frequent as one might hope. Yes, you will believe a Spider-Man can fly.
Turn Off the Dark, of course, is still famously in its prolonged preview performances and doesn't officially open until March. That means that the show isn't "locked" yet and may still be tinkered with behind-the-scenes; this, however, apparently will not include any new music being written by U2's Bono and The Edge, who created their first rock musical with this show. The lyrics and music, to this fanboy's ears, is amenable if somewhat samey at times, with two guitarists standing off to one side of the stage plucking away, as if to remind us that this isn't your grandma's Broadway. Standout numbers include Arachne's "Turn Off the Dark" and Peter and MJ's "No More."
The funny thing is that while even the basest, lowest common denominator among the fanboys are likely to reject this show, so are the more highbrow theatergoers (and critics) who can't possibly see how the story of a guy who gets bitten by a spider could be art. If Julie Taymor's Spider-Man is anything, it's art -- pop art, but art all the same.
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Art, you might say!