Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark (A Review)
Everything you’ve heard is true. Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark is a debacle; the scope of its ineptitude is so great that a single review cannot encapsulate the disaster that unfolds on stage. Just imagine Roseanne Barr singing the national anthem from the deck of the Hindenburg and you’ll have the closest approximation that I can muster in a single sentence. There is so much wrong with Turn Off the Dark that it is tempting to simply recap the show in chronological order and let it speak for itself. I’ll try to be a bit more discerning in this review, but some plot points will be included so I believe that this is the appropriate time to mention that there will be spoilers below (can you spoil something that has no coherent plot?). Alright, for those of you still reading, let’s dive in.
At its core, Spider-Man: Bring Me A Flashlight claims to be structured as a Greek tragedy. The Greek overtones are made painstakingly explicit throughout the show, with narration provided by a Greek chorus made up entirely of comic book nerds – they are listed in the program as the Geek Chorus lest the pun be lost on some poor rubes unable to puzzle out that dazzling wordplay for themselves. The mythological figure Arachne is shoehorned into the play as well, and is eventually revealed to be the main villain of the piece, controlling the events of Act II from the astral plane in an effort to get Spider-Man to join the spirit world and become her eternal lover [reviewer’s note: that last sentence was not embellished for humor, and is, in fact, a faithful description of the entire second act of the play].
Yet, for all of its Greek bluster, the show forgets that Greek tragedies generally end in one of the traditional “cides” (sui-/patri-/matri-/fratri-/infanti-) and instead chooses boy-gets-girlicide wherein Arachne abandons her eons long quest to bone Spider-Man and just lets him go back to Mary Jane because his humanity is too strong to abandon… or some such drivel. Ultimately, the second act seems to have been written by an 9th grader trying to create a remake of a Princess Bride – starring Spider-Man as Princess Buttercup – as if it were storyboarded by William S Burroughs and then hastily rewritten by said 9th grader’s parents to be handed in as their child’s book report on Ovid.
In contrast, the first act of Spider-Man: That’s Not How Light Switches Work actually works quite well from a plot standpoint. This act takes the stories used in the first two Sam Raimi movies and rolls them into one dramatic arc in which Spidey saves Mary Jane from the Green Goblin, while killing the villain in the process. The downfall here is that by squeezing two movies into a single act, and killing off the primary antagonist in that act’s finale, the author’s have pretty much – to use the technical term out of Freytag’s Pyramid – blown their wad with half of a show remaining.
But enough about plot… let’s get to the music. I should preface by saying that I am a big U2 fan. And not just the old stuff; throughout college I took a lot of grief for my love of All That You Can’t Leave Behind. So, after hearing the music from this show, I have to imagine that Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. are pretty pleased that Bono and The Edge are the only two saps from U2 with their names attached to this soundtrack. The lyrics are unintelligible. The attempts at vocal harmonies are earsplitting. Worst of all, the tunes are ultimately, entirely forgettable. A day after seeing the show, the only musical phrase that I can recall, is the chorus to a piece titled “Bully By Numbers,” which seemed to have been lyrics set to the sound of a doorbell chime that was patterned after the tune of “Frère Jacques.”
While we are on the subject, “Bully By Numbers” features one of the three dance numbers in the show that I would characterize as abominable. This particular piece consists of dancing bullys performing acrobatic flips that are supposed to depict a game in which they were awarded points for their most stylish beatdowns on an as of yet superpowerless Peter Parker. However, that number pales in comparison to what is by far the most absurd dance of the show, which I will call the shoe dance, but based on my program, I believe it is actually called “Think Again” [reviewer’s note: just a reminder that I couldn’t understand a single lyric in any song of the night so I can’t match up the shoe dance song to any of the titles found in the Playbill]. The shoe dance – which set the audience into uproarious laughter during the performance – comes after a scene in which Arachne ponders aloud over what possible reasons Peter Parker could have for chosing Mary Jane as a lover. Upon reaching the perfectly logical conclusion that Mary Jane’s big advantage is that she, unlike Arachne, wears shoes, the villainess exclaims “bring me shoes!” What follows is a parade of dancers that are dressed as 8-legged spiders that are dressed as what can only be described as “hoochies” in various colors of platform heels. These dancers proceed to perform choreographed moves that might be exciting if they were done using limbs made of flesh, but sadly loose their luster when performed with plastic appendages. In perhaps the greatest tragedy of the show, this comedic gold mine of a number is treated with quite a bit of seriousness.
The final atrocious dance number is “Bouncing Off the Walls,” which features Peter discovering his powers and clambering about on the walls of his room. The wirework is clumsy, and Peter never seems in control of his body. What’s worse, the walls move around constantly as they are simply pieces of painted cardboard held up by stagehands dressed in blacks. This dance wasn’t as bad as the two previously mentioned numbers; I only mention it because other than during this piece, the wirework and the sets were actually quite spectacular. I thoroughly enjoyed the aerial fight scenes that occurred above the audience. Watching Spider-Man swing from the stage to the upper balcony, land in a graceful pose, and dive back down to grapple with the Green Goblin mid-flight is truly a delight. And, the sets are a brilliant translation of comic book panels onto the stage. Using two-dimensional painted flats, the stage is transformed into a variety of locations, and through the forced perspective in those paintings, a skyscraper can tower over the actors in one scene, and provide an easy walkway for Spidey to scale in the next. In these two technical areas, the play is a triumph, and you can see the ambition and genius of the creative team peeking through.
Unfortunately for those who hope that Spider Man: Why Does Bono Insist On Wearing Sunglasses Inside if He is Bothered By The Dark is a serious or artistic show, there are all the other aspects.
The costumes are amateurish. The Second Act opens with what amounts to a fashion show of costumes for Spidey’s various foes as follows: The Lizard is an inflatable dinosaur balloon; Swarm looks like the Michelin Man painted with black and yellow bumble-bee stripes then covered in pipe cleaners; and Carnage is a mess of rubber and faux-metallic plastic that looks as though his suit was made entirely from recycled Nike shoe material.
The performances are a mess. The Green Goblin seems to be doing a Foghorn Leghorn impersonation throughout the show (I believe there was even a moment where the actor proclaimed “I say, I say, Global Warming!”), the Geek Chorus seems to have been plucked from a failing high school theater department, and Reeve Carney as Spider-Man valiantly attempts the horrendous songs, but lacks any of Spidey’s trademark humor.
The humor. That is the crux of the problem with the show, and the point on which I’ll close. The show is FUNNY. I have not laughed so hard in ages. Of course, all of this humor is unintentional. The only attempts at humor in the show are self-referential to the point that I’m amazed the show wasn’t titled Spider-Man: I’m So Meta It Hurts. I groaned when Peter told Mary Jane, “Spider Man isn’t so great. He could never star in a Broadway musical like you will some day.” A good 30% of Green Goblin’s dialogue centered around jokes that the theater/play/audience were all located in New York – the Act One closing number is “I’ll Take Manhattan”. And the references to U2 were gut wrenchingly cheesy – a character exclaims, “The Human Spider is about to go ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ on this professional wrestler.”
But those duds aside, the musical is a riot, and a hell of an enjoyable time. The shoe dance had me cackling, the wrestling match featured Spider-Man punching a cheap-looking inflatable blowup doll in the crotch, and the addition of an onstage reggae singer for the Act Two was so absurd that I was worried I had slipped into a fever dream. The action sequences switch from awe-inspiring wirework, to dreck seamlessly. In one number – to simulate Spider-Man diving off of the Chrysler Building in order to catch a falling Mary Jane – a foot high plastic figurine of our hero is hoisted – on a very visible rope – alongside a cardboard depiction of the skyscraper. Just think. There was a production meeting in which someone decided that would be a convincing trick on the audience’s eyes.
Then, there is the comedic apex of the show: Spider-Man saves a baby as it falls from a burning building.
The 2-D building lowers into view from the stage right wing; along its edges, red and orange tissue paper flutters in the wind to show that a fire is raging out of control. Over the speaker system a woman’s voice shouts, “MY BABY!” And it drops – a 15-foot tall 2-D painting of a baby, depicted with all the verisimilitude that makes you believe Monopoly’s Rich Uncle Pennybags is a real man. This 2-D painting is lowered slowly from the proscenium arch. The audience laughs so hard that they begin to weep as they realize that they are watching professional theater – on Broadway no less! As the laughter grows to a deafening level, the baby falls toward its doom. But lo! From the stage left wing, a 20-ft long arm of Spiderman is reaching out. And yes! It catches the baby. Blackout.
The baby is saved, and you have just had the most memorable and entertaining theater experience of your life.
I urge anyone who is able to go see this masterpiece immediately before the producers have a chance to do rewrites and make it better, because if it gets any better, the magic will be ruined.
