Spiderman: The Reviews are In
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 11:48AM
I saw the show a month ago; my write up is here. Most of the critics decided to treat last night, the previously scheduled delayed opening, as opening and review it. Sadly, it seems that Taymor didn't take anyone's advice, and the show has been roundly (and rightfully) panned. Elizabeth Maupin has a great round up of the reviews here. Here's some highlights:
Ben Brantley in the NY Times:
The sheer ineptitude of this show, inspired by the Spider-Man comic books, loses its shock value early. After 15 or 20 minutes, the central question you keep asking yourself is likely to change from “How can $65 million look so cheap?” to “How long before I’m out of here?”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post:
What's apparent after 170 spirit-snuffing minutes in the Foxwoods Theatre - interrupted by the occasional burst of aerial distraction - is that director Julie Taymor, of "The Lion King" fame, left a few essential items off her lavish shopping list:
1. Coherent plot
2. Tolerable music
3. Workable sets
I think Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune really nails the core of the problems on the show, which is pure theatrical arrogance and pretension:
Time and again, the show runs away from what I suspect the creators feared would be too predictable or cheap, but that we miss.
That's pretty much what I said a month ago, and the tragedy here is that Taymor's ego has done in what could have been a great spectacle.
Reader Comments (1)
It was a big risk making a comic book into a musical, and ego was the problem. You need more than big names to make a production work!