History will be made on Broadway this weekend: The $70 million museum piece that is Julie Taymor’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” the most expensive musical of all time, will be on display for four final showings from Friday night through Sunday afternoon, then disassembled out of existence.
Gone, when the show resumes performances on May 12 after a three-week overhaul, will be the Geek Chorus of narrators who were stand-ins for the show’s creators: Bono and the Edge of U2, the playwright Glen Berger, and Ms. Taymor, whom the producers ousted as director last month over creative conflicts.
Gone will be Ms. Taymor’s vision of the spider villainess Arachne, now a central role inspired by Greek mythology, but one that will be reduced to a guardian angel character during the hiatus, according to members of the cast and the production.
Gone, too, will be some of Ms. Taymor’s head-spinning numbers like “Deeply Furious,” where Arachne and her spider ladies-in-waiting became all-powerful by slipping shoes onto their many legs. Gone will be the Act I death of another villain, the Green Goblin, who will become an even bigger character when performances resume — reflecting the wishes of focus groups that “Spider-Man” producers convened this winter. And gone will be the Act II climax, a confrontation between Arachne and Peter Parker.
Full Story: Julie Taymor’s Vision for ‘Spider-Man’ Takes Its Final Bows – NYTimes.com
