So now that director/co-writer/mask designer Julie Taymor is leaving Spider-Man: The Crying Game Turn Off The Dark, what changes are the the new creative team of Philip William McKinley and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa bringing to the tortured and costly musical? A lot less shoes, to start.
Since it opened started previews last year one of the show's most critically derided numbers has been a song called “Deeply Furious,” sung by the character Arachne and a chorus of shoe-wearing spider-ladies, which exiting theatergoers have taken to calling the "shoe song." Our spy who saw the Green Goblin get stuck on Wednesday described it this way: "Oh my god, the Shoes number is literally one of the most offensive things I have ever seen. It's like watered-down Christina Aguilera meets Sex and the City meets a wholesale rejection of feminism."
According to the Times' sources the shoe song is one of the first things the producers want cut (Bono and the Edge are reportedly writing a few new numbers). Other changes planned include drastically reducing the Taymor stand-in/character of Arachne, enlarging the romance between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, "additional flying sequences are being considered, and the story arc of the villain Green Goblin is also expected to be clarified." And hopefully they will also clarify the second act more than a smidgen (spoiler: it's a dream!).
Though the deal to oust Julie Taymor from the show is still being finalized, the current scuttlebutt is that she will retain the title of director and keep a credit for the book.
And wait! There's more! The Post's Michael Riedel apparently has some chums in the cast and chorus and they are not happy. See, it turns out that the dancers and chorus members are on six-month contracts which end in May, and a few of them have apparently made a pact to leave when their contracts are up. "They're fed up," a production source told the paper.
Also, the leads (who have contracts through next November) are exhausted and "cynicism prevails backstage." One person tells Riedel that "If the dancers all leave, we'll just use it as another excuse to postpone again." And further: "the sense is that unless Bono decides to play Peter Parker himself, this musical is on its way to becoming the biggest flop in theater history."
