Musical 'Meh'

Since I've been going on and on about Top Girls almost ad nauseum, I thought I'd talk about musical theatre tonight, for a change.

Of course, the big Broadway news this year is the on-again-off-again-on-again Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, directed by The Lion King director, Julie Taymor, with music and lyrics by U2's Bono and The Edge.

With production costs estimated to be well over $100M, SM:TOD will have to run for thirty years before it sees a profit. My friend Michael thinks this is a brilliant idea for a show and can't wait to see it. I think it's the dumbest concept for a musical since Carrie White (and we all know how well that turned out - poor Betty Buckley had to play a man in her next show to wash the stink off of her career). Now I love Taymor (especially her films) and I used to love U2, but I just don't see this working, especially after seeing this clip of Taymor's, Bono's and the Edge's recent appearance on "Good Morning America:"

Pop-up book sets? And what the hell is "Swiss Miss?" You can't tell me that Stan Lee actually approved that ridiculous costume. And here's Reeve Carney (Peter Parker/Spider-Man) singing one of the show's songs, "Boy Falls From the Sky:"

Not exactly something you'll be humming on your way out of the theatre, is it? 

But never fear. News from i09 is on the way to save the day... or is it? The Sci-Fi maniacs are reporting that Spidey will have some mammoth competition when the musical King Kong - Live On Stage opens in 2013. Construction on the animatronic ape is already underway in Australia, courtesy of the folks who brought us Walking with Dinosaurs. No word on who'll be starring yet, but you can bet they won't be monkeying around with this one (sorry - couldn't help myself).

Finally (via) out of Germany comes Hope! The Musical. A musical biography of our 44th President, Hope! The Musical is the story of the meteoric rise of Barack Huessin Obama, his wife Michelle and his rivals: Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Sarah Palin. The show is apparently huge in Europe and plans are underway for a US tour. Sung in English and German, the clip below looks to me like a combination of Hair, Rent, and Stomp as produced by Simon Cowell and the DNC:

Honestly, with shows like this in our future, I'm almost glad I stopped doing musicals a while back. 

More, anon.

Prospero

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Turn That Crap Off!

Just for the record, I usually adore the work of director Julie Taymor. The Lion King was a huge Broadway hit simply because of her inventive use of puppets in bringing Disney's animated musical version of Hamlet to the live stage.

And her films are usually wonderful. Titus, her satirical take on Shakespeare's ridiculous Roman tragedy is simply brilliant and hilarious. Then there's Frida, the biopic of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, starring Selma Hyack. And the outrageous, Beatles-inspired Across the Universe, a psychadelic story of a musician in the 60's. All of them are visually striking and interesting films.

But, when word came out late last year that Taymor and U2's Bono and The Edge were collaborating on a stage musical based on the Marvel Comics superstar superhero Spider-Man, I could barely contain my instant hatred of the idea. To date, there have only really been two successful comics-inspired musicals: Annie and L'il Abner, both of which are just atrocious. There was also a terrible Superman musical, It's a Bird.. It's a Plane... It's Superman, which was adapted by ABC into an atrocious TV movie in 1975., starring Leslie Ann Warren as Lois Lane.

Anyway, the Broadway version of Spider-Man (Entitled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark) was supposed to star Universe star Rachel Evan Wood as Mary Jane and Titus/X2 star Alan Cumming as the Green Goblin. It was reportedly budgeted at... are you ready?... Really?... Because it's just ridiculous... $45 Million! Yes, you read that correctly. Forty-five million U.S. Dollars. That meant that the show would have to sell every seat in the Hilton Theatre for five years, just to break even!

Now sadly, in recent years Broadway has fallen into a Hollywood trap (I blame The Phantom of the Opera and Taymor's Lion King) of over-bloated spectacles in the likes of Mary Poppins, Wicked and Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang.

Upon news of this ridiculous idea, I immediately went insane. I mean, honestly, what the frig were all parties involved thinking? There was no way in hell that this was a good idea. And apparently, the backers think so too. According to both Variety and the New York Post, production has been halted on the extravaganza due to lack of funding. And all I can say is "Thank goodness common sense has prevailed."

Maybe now Taymor can concentrate on her film adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which I hope you are all wise enough to know is the play which inspired both my signature and this blog's title.

More, anon.

Prospero

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