Yesterday the NY Post's Michael Riedel reported that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Darkdirector Julie Taymor would be forced to share the shuddering wheel of the $65 million musical. Sources told Riedel that Julie Taymor is "exhausted" with the production, and producers are looking to bring on a co-director. But the report was quickly quashed by a spokesperson for the musical, who told Playbill, "The production has not brought anyone on and the original creative team remains firmly in place, with Julie Taymor at the helm." Note that the statement did not say anything about future plans, so stay tuned. In the meantime, there's another fun negative review from a major critic!
The New Yorker's John Lahr has his turn this week, in a review so entertaining we think the magazine is kind of crazy for not putting it behind the paywall. To be fair, the review isn't all bad; Lahr acknowledges that Taymor "has a dynamic, painterly sense of space; she can marshal all the sensual elements of movement, light, and perspective into amazing stage pictures." But where she runs into trouble is when she forgets to tell a story (because she doesn't know how.) "In The Lion King, Taymor had strong producers to oversee her and a solid-gold piece of Disney business art, from whose plot she could not veer. Here she has neither. The result is a triumph of narrative indulgence over theatrical expertise." But here's our favorite part:
"Spider-Man" has inadvertently pointed the way toward a sensational new window of commercial opportunity: the musical of human sacrifice. True, the broken feet, broken wrists, broken ribs, concussions, and internal bleeding already suffered by members of the show’s acrobatic team are not the ultimate sacrifice, but the time is surely not far off when Broadway’s dream of “making a killing” will literally come true. Think of it as bearbaiting for the twenty-first century. Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on social programs for prisoners, immigrants, and the aged, we can dispose of those at risk in the name of entertainment. The participants would, of course, pass along to their heirs a percentage of the adjusted box-office gross, which, even after taxes, would allow them to die with dignity.
Read the whole thing here; it's much more fun than the show itself, and it's worth noting that a year's subscription to The New Yorker costs about $250 less than what the magazine paid for Lahr's ticket.
Asked by the New York Observer why The New Yorker decided to review the production before the oft-postponed opening night, Lahr explained that his boss, David Remnick, had solicited the review, and added, "I felt that once the Times had reviewed it—and these 'rules' were invented by the Times to serve the Times—then it was up for grabs."
