Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark–My Review

Below the cut line is my fairly long commentary on the Julie Taymor-directed musical currently in previews at the Foxwoods Theatre. I have tried to minimize spoilers.

Enjoy.

My grandmother used to have a saying that, transliterated, went something like, “Lechamor lo marim chatzi avodah,” and translated, was, “Never show a jáçkášš a half finished job.” The principle behind it is that if a fool looks at, say, a house, and it’s only partly finished, then he’ll say things such as, “There’s no roof on it; rain’s going to get in and soak anyone living there,” and other useless observations. It’s one of the reasons I never form opinions on movies until they’re up on the screen, while meantime others declare that something is going to suck based upon announced creators, leaked backstage photos, or rumored plots.

So with “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” I’m in an odd position. The job is way more than half-finished and is being presented to audiences for inspection and, presumably, commentary. But it is still a work in progress, and what’s wrong—and there’s plenty wrong—might yet be repaired while what’s right—and there’s plenty right—could get even better.

The bottom line that, in defiance of the term itself, I’ll put toward the top, is this: Is there enough of what’s right to warrant your time and, at these prices, your money?

Oh yeah. Definitely.

SM: TOD (the German word for “death,” I might observe) is like a homerun hitter. It doesn’t know how to lay down a bunt or just try to make contact. It swings for the fences consistently. It strikes out more than it should and with big strokes. When it connects, however, it knocks it out of the park.

Remember when everyone was badmouthing “Terminator 2” based largely on the fact that the budget was a then-unheard of $100 million? But once people saw the film, the opinion was the same across the board: James Cameron had put every cent of the thing up on the screen. Same deal here. If you’ve ever sat idly around and wondered what $65 million would look like up on a Broadway stage (as opposed to, say, used to feed the homeless or build schools) then this is the show for you. The costumes, the sets, the effects, are simply—dámņ. There’s no appropriate adjective that hasn’t been used in front of “Spider-Man,” so it’ll sound like I’m making a joke. Okay fine: it’s amazing. Spectacular, even. Gigantic cutouts of the Green Goblin that swing on from the wings to symbolically dwarf our hero. Hydraulic platforms so that Mary Jane (a sincere and yet sexy Jennifer Damiano) can be dangling from a great height or to create forced perspective views of a dizzying fall. Wirework technique which ranges from having Peter Parker (a game for anything Reeve Carney who deftly encompasses Peter’s soulfulness) literally bouncing off the walls of his bedroom, to the Goblin and Spider-Man slugging it out while soaring over the audience’s head (making it the most totally immersive superhero experience I’ve been to since the Spider-Man ride at Universal.) There is a literally haunting sequence in Act 2 (indeed, it’s one of the few things in Act 2 that really works, which I’ll get to later) involving a sleeping Peter being seduced in his dreams by the villainess Arachne (Natalie Mendoza, gleefully non-concussed) that is quite simply one of the most astounding visuals I’ve ever seen on stage, period.

These are the things that will blow you away. These are the things that will stay with you. These are the things that will make it worthwhile for you to go.

But now we must move on, slowly, reluctantly, to the stuff that is (as my grandmother would say) half-finished. And in some instances half-baked.

The first act is a sometimes uneasy combination of mythic scope, sincerity, and broad camp. The tonal shifts can leave you, as an audience, trying to find your balance and not always succeeding. After a quick teaser image of Spidey trying, and seemingly failing, to rescue Mary Jane, the show stumbles right out of the gate with the introduction of the Geek Chorus, a group of four fans who provide the narrative structure of the show as they endeavor to produce/create/narrate what they consider to be the definitive Spider-Man story. The distaff member of the quartet happens to be named “Miss Arrow,” which indicates that either Taymor or co-writer Glen Berger read “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” where I created a character by that name so, y’know, thanks for the shout-out, guys. (Also receiving shout-outs are Joe Quesada and Joe Straczynski, whose names are ascribed to unseen characters. The fact that Kathleen and I were the only ones who audibly reacted with laughter gives an indication of just how few actual comics fans were in the audience.)

Can such a device—a modern day Greek chorus commenting on or creating a narrative—work? Sure. They did it in “Little Shop of Horrors.” Hëll, they did it in an episode of one of the Batman animated series.

But it doesn’t work here. At all.

There are germs of possibilities in the Geeks. The discussions they have about free will versus determination—was Peter Parker destined to be bitten by the spider as opposed to it being random chance; is Peter an everyman or does his scientific acumen make him special?—are the exact kinds of debates one sees on message boards all the time (which is probably where they got the idea.)

But the possibilities are crippled by the execution. The self-conscious dialogue (oftentimes rhyming, suggesting it was from a song that was cut) alternates between stilted and outright painful, the actors don’t quite seem to have their lines down, and if you excised them from the first act, it wouldn’t matter.

After the initial stumble, however, the show quickly recovers, introducing elements both new and old and old/new, from a variety of sources: Parker as a picked on teen (Amazing Fantasy #15), while smitten with Mary Jane (more recent comics and the first movie), and Arachne from Greek myth. The theme being established is clear: Spider-Man is part of a mythic architecture that goes back centuries and is as old as mankind’s ability to sit around a campfire and say, “Once upon a time.” One thinks JMS would approve.

The show also endeavors to accommodate the expectations of all audience members and thus includes the type of things that will set on edge the teeth of many fans. There are the requisite giant sound effects associated with the Batman TV show, here either displayed on Jumbo-tron sized screens or held up on cut-outs. Norman Osborn is no longer the bullying bášŧárd of the comics or even the snarling nut-job of the film; instead he’s a big, avuncular, happily married genetic researcher (scene-chewingly performed by Patrick Page with a broad Texan accent) who seems like he wandered in from a production of “Li’l Abner,” surrounded by scientists attired in silver labcoats boosted from Devo’s closet. Meanwhile The Daily Bugle is straight out of the 1930s, with reporters running in and out breathlessly shouting headlines to a pin-stripped Jonah Jameson (Michael Mulhern, looking amazingly like David White who played Jonah in the 1977 TV movie) while sob-sisters clack away on manual typewriters. All that’s missing is a shout of “Stop the presses!”

Yet somehow, if you’re willing to check all your preconceptions (and a small percentage of your sanity) at the door, it more or less works. Musicals are stylishly unreal anyway; you’re supposed to accept that it’s not strange at all that people express their emotions by bursting into song. And superheroes are likewise stylishly unreal. Plus…hey…Spider-Man’s swinging overhead! Now he’s slugging it out with the Goblin five feet above me! Holy crap! So there’s that.

Then we roll into the second act, and we’ve got a problem. The Sinister Six is introduced, courtesy of the Geeks, walking a runway like a fashion show. Even those audience members most inclined to take the camp elements in stride were going, “Huh?” (Although I will admit, with a sigh, that Swiss Miss looked fantastic.) For this and other crimes against narrative humanity, the Geeks are subsequently banished from the second act, and not missed one bit.

But as the rest of the storyline unfolds—except for a few bright spots here and there (the aforementioned dream seduction, for instance)—the show becomes increasingly labored, like someone who didn’t pace himself properly running a marathon now trying to stagger to the finish line. The narrative becomes tortured, the story nearly incomprehensible, a five minute production number about stolen shoes serves to make Arachne and her minions the one thing they haven’t been thus far—stupid—and the dramatic beats of the ending make no freaking sense no matter how many times Kathleen and I tried to parse it during the drive home.

I haven’t discussed the songs by Bono and The Edge. (As an aside, I have to admit that, generally speaking, I have little patience for an individual who has a definite article in his name. If you go by “the,” then you better be a superhero, a super-villain, a wrestler, or Big Bopper; otherwise you’re just going to annoy the crap out of me.) That said: I miss the days when Broadway shows had half a dozen memorable songs. Nowadays if you get one, you’re lucky. Here, the closest they come is “The Boy Falls From the Sky,” Parker’s climactic power ballad, the main musical sting of which is featured heavily in the commercial. Is that where we’ve gotten to? Instead of leaving a show humming half a dozen songs, we get half a dozen notes?

I admit the actors perform the songs under some impressive circumstances. Arachne’s ‘Think Again” rallying cry to her minions is performed while the actress is literally being flung around the stage thirty feet in the air, and she never misses a note. That alone should get her a Tony nomination.

Just to show you how subjective music appreciation is: Kathleen said her problem with it was that the composers attempted too many different styles and thus never found a single voice for the show. That it was a musical stylistically at war with itself. To me, on the other hand, it all just sounded alike, the songs going until they stopped, never building to anything, and none of it particularly memorable.

Which is why the recent announcements that the show’s opening being delayed until February so that additional work can be done on the book and songs is both good news and bad. The good news is, thank God, it needs it. The bad news is, Bono and the Edge are coming back to write new songs, while I’m not blown away by the ones they’ve got. Tell me they were bringing in Trey Parker, whose musical work on “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” was praised by no less an authority than Stephen Sondheim, and I’d feel a bit more sanguine about it. I suppose what it comes down to is that, if you’re a big fan of Bono and The Edge, you’ll love it. If not, it certainly won’t inspire you to run out and buy your first U2 album.

I should also note, for the ebay fans out there, that I have never seen a show in previews that sports That Much Merchandise. The theater has an entire store packed with SM:TOD shirts, hats, cups, you name it. My advice: Go for the hoodie. It’s fleece lined, thermal, and features a kicking spider emblem on the back.

Oh, and for the record, there were a couple of minor technical glitches, but otherwise even the most astounding stunts were pulled off with the flawlessness of a Cirque du Soleil performance. The show started at 8:10 (it took that long to seat the capacity audience) and finished at 10:35, including fifteen-minute intermission, so the inflated running time has been conquered.

There has been an undue amount of schadenfreude attached to this show, it seems to me. People have obsessed about the price tag and reported with seeming glee about the many fits and starts of the production. Even I bìŧçhëd about Swiss Miss. But I tend to think that when creators feel passionate enough about a project to devote eight years of their lives (and a chunk of their own money when the show runs out of funds) because they believe in it That Much, then that alone deserves consideration, appreciation and respect, and we should be pulling for its success rather than rooting for its failure. And the real bottom line (as opposed to the other bottom line that I put at the top) is this: At curtain call, the audience gave the show a standing ovation because of what the show was—a sheer spectacle, unlike anything that has ever hit Broadway, that was a culmination of nearly a decade of work, and one that, we all hope, will be even better by the time it opens. I think even my grandmother would have signed off on that.

PAD

152 comments on “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark–My Review

  1. Thanks for the 411 – will wait for the ‘completed house’ – cause if by your report they fix 95 percent fix of the problems, it looks like this musical is gonna rock!

  2. I’ll bet any amount of dough that PAD is the only reviewer to put Trey Parker as a potential songwriter for this musical. (It’s a good choice if the musical doesn’t take itself seriously: I have the soundtrack to SOUTH PARK: BLU and have listened to it so, so often.)

  3. Thanks for the extended review.
    Overpriced no matter how good it becomes.
    I’ll undoubtedly pass.

      1. 76 is pretty good. The problem is most of the news articles and posts people make suggest seating is in the $150-200s range.

        $76 each is reasonable for my family to go. $225 is not.

        Although how good are the $76 seats? Are they the equivalent to the $20 seats at Phantom (i.e. The very very last row, even behind the guy doing lights)?

      2. I honestly don’t know how good the cheapest seats are. I would think if you’re sitting far back in the orchestra, you’re going to miss part of the flying effects as they go in their arc; there’s no way you couldn’t. Your view would be cut off by the overhang of the mezz. But every effect circles the place several times so you’d still have a chance to see what was going on.
        .
        On the other hand, it’s a show where if you’re too far front, then you’re craning your neck when they go hurtling toward the balcony. the ideal seats, if you can handle it, are where were: Dead center around rows H through J. After that you’d want front mezzanine.
        .
        PAD

      3. Yes, the accusation that Mr. or Mrs. David is callous and misleading is out there. “Peter” did say this. He also makes a good prima facie case that what he is saying is accurate. I do not have a theory as to why Kathleen David is complacent about the rate of injury on the set of “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark,” unless it is solidarity with her husband. PAD’s reasoning would appear to be either “callous and misleading” or constitutionally unable to back down from any position he has taken, no matter how poorly thought out.

  4. I’d really like to see this.
    .
    Regarding the musical styles, were different characters assigned to the different sounds, sort of a dischordant kind of characterization, or were the styles just kind of mishmoshed amongst everyone?

    1. Kath here although I am betting it will say Peter at the name on top.

      Sean,
      If they had done that I would have been more alright with it and put it down to a stylize choice however that is not what was done.
      Kath

      1. I think a big part of what gives musicals memorable songs is the use of themes. When you’re dealing with individual songs, the best hook wins, but in a musical the good hooks are repeated to create the sense of a cohesive whole. The bits you leave the theatre humming are the bits that were worked into other songs. Having not heard the score, that’s my best guess as to what went wrong. The downside of music written by someone who didn’t study music, maybe.

      2. I’m not the biggest fan of musicals, so I can’t really say much about what makes good music for them. I will say that the thing I like most is when the songs actually advance the story.
        .
        For example, the song that I liked best in Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (though it’s hard to choose) is the Bad Horse Telegram. It is not only a catchy song and funny, it also has tons of plot advancing information.
        .
        I things songs are the most forgettable when they could be taken out of show without the audience missing anything. If something happens and then the characters just stand around singing about their emotional reaction to that event, that’s repetitious. If the song can convince me that the emotional reaction is happening *before* the song, not during, to the point that something would be lacking if the song wasn’t there, that works.

    1. Yeah, Uncle Ben dies in a car crash. Not a car crash, actually; a hit and run. My guess, based upon that and other things in the first act, is that they used the movie as a template for the origin rather than AF#15.
      .
      Remember, in the film, it wasn’t a burglar; it was a car jacker. So now it becomes a hit and run. The step from burglar to hit-and-run seems vast; but if you’re going from car jacker to hit-and-run, then the difference seems minimal. Basically it’s a Xerox of a Xerox. They probably figured that as long as Uncle Ben dies and Peter could have stopped it but was too self-absorbed to do so, they were good to go.
      .
      PAD

      1. And from there, it’s just a short step to Uncle Ben dying due to a loose wire in the intake manifold electrocuting him, a wire that Peter was supposed to have fixed, and voila! Peter becomes the amazing Spider-Mechanic!

      2. While i don’t figure that origins need to be “updated” when new creative teams work on a character (and often shouldn’t be – the horrible travesty that Andrew Vachss perpetrated on Batman a case very much in point), if they felt (for some reason) that they needed to do so, i have to agree that your suggested rationale on the part of the creative team sounds plausible … and doesn’t bother me overly.
        .
        (Disney’s “improvements” on the story of “Beauty and the Beast”, to my mind, are much more egregious. Cocteau got it right {to the extent that Shelly Duvall’s “Faerie Tale Theatre” simply recycled the Cocteau version – down to makeups, costumes and even the Beast’s body language}, so why did Disney have to pee in it?)

        (And i’m sure that one will get me some responses…)

      3. Just to play the game of telephone we go from the guy who kills Uncle Ben is a burglar to car-jacker to hit and runner to…? Tragically oblivious jack-hammer-er? That may happen in Webb’s flick. But Emma Stone is in it so I would be okay with that.

      4. To each their own, I kinda liked what Andrew Vachss did with Batman: The Ultimate Evil; we’ve seen for years that Bruce inherited part of his genius from his father; what has he inherited from his mother? (Plus, I kinda saw the entire novel as an elseworlds given how little impact it had on Batman’s regular continuity.) And look at Batman Begins; they went with the idea that both of Batman’s parents were activists, and that was why they were targeted. (Which isn’t a huge leap from the “Lew Moxon” element of the Batman comics throught the years.)

        .

        Personally though, I think it always should have been a random holdup. Batman’s war is against *crime* and shouldn’t be against a specific criminal. Having the Waynes targeted goes against that.

  5. (Disney’s “improvements” on the story of “Beauty and the Beast”, to my mind, are much more egregious. Cocteau got it right {to the extent that Shelly Duvall’s “Faerie Tale Theatre” simply recycled the Cocteau version – down to makeups, costumes and even the Beast’s body language}, so why did Disney have to pee in it?)
    .
    Well, if they had done what Duvall’s show did, then wouldn’t people have just said, “Disney ripped off Cocteau, those bášŧárdš.” Right?
    .
    I’m not sure why you’re singling out “BatB” which was, by every reasonable measure–from critical reaction to a virtually unheard of Oscar Nom for Best Picture–a magnificent achievement. Disney routinely makes massive changes to source material. “Pinocchio,” “Sleeping Beauty.” I’ve seen Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” a whole bunch of times and not once did she get her tongue cut out or, y’know, die. Bad news: Quasimodo didn’t get a happy ending in the original “Hunchback” either.
    .
    I’m not dissing the Cocteau film; it’s brilliant. But it’s not the be-all, end all of depictions of the story any more than the Alastair Sim “Christmas Carol” precludes the George C. Scott TV version or, for that matter, “The Muppet Christmas Carol.”
    .
    PAD

    1. Disney does what Disney does. The real issue many have with them is that many people will see their version of a story before they ever read the original. For example, how many people would actually go seek out Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio compared to how many have seen the Disney version.

      With stories like Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Brave Little Tailor, Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Frog Prince, Rapunzel and the aforementioned Beauty and the Beast, the situation is very different because they all stem from folk tales with no real authors that were passed around and changed by every teller. We don’t even have records of some of the earliest versions. In those cases, there isn’t any real canon version. Pretty much everyone can tell them their own way. As someone who does oral storytelling as a hobby, you can trust my experience with that.

      Anyway, glad you liked the show.

      1. Disney does what Disney does. The real issue many have with them is that many people will see their version of a story before they ever read the original. For example, how many people would actually go seek out Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio compared to how many have seen the Disney version.
        .
        To which I’d respond: Name another book Carlo Collodi wrote besides “Pinocchio,” off the top of your head. Go ahead, check Wikipedia; I’ll wait.
        .
        For that matter, another book by Felix Salten other than “Bambi?” Another novel by Dodie Smith other than “The One Hundred and One Dalmatians?” A single book by P.L. Travers that didn’t feature Mary Poppins?
        .
        I think a case can be made that people might not, in fact, be seeking out “Pinocchio” at all if it weren’t for Disney’s version. It might just be another forgotten, long out of print novel. When I was a kid, I saw the Disney movie, loved it, and my dad bought me the book and read it to me. If the movie didn’t exist, I’d never have experienced Collodi’s vision. (I remember being stunned when he stomped on the cricket.) I doubt I was unique in that respect.
        .
        Say what you will about adaptations of books, but at least Disney keeps interest in the books alive.
        .
        PAD

      2. However, “Cinderella”, as known in most of the world, derives from a specific version (and a mis-translation, at that, that makes a fur slipper a glass one).
        .
        But i have never encountered a version of La belle et la bete in which the reader/auditor is informed of the specific nature of the Beast’s curse up front; the whole point of the story is the revelation.
        .
        (Garbo, BTW and slightly off-track, was reported to have watched the Cocteau film and said, at the end “I want my Beast back,” a sentiment shared by many people when confronted with the pretty-boy Prince.)
        .
        The Cocteau film makes several significant alterations to the general form of the story (most notably Jean Marais’ second role as Avenant, and what happens to him), but retains the essential form.
        .
        Robin McKinley’s Beauty (and, to a lesser extent, her later Rose Daughter), ring Significant Changes … but, again, remain true to the underlying form and message of the tale.
        .
        Taking (again) one of your own examples – would you begin to tell your own version of the “Three Little Pigs” by saying something like “Houses of straw and sticks won’t keep out a wolf but bricks will, so, anyway, once upon a time, there were three little pigs…”?

      3. But i have never encountered a version of La belle et la bete in which the reader/auditor is informed of the specific nature of the Beast’s curse up front; the whole point of the story is the revelation.
        .
        No, it’s not. The whole point of the story is the redemptive and transformative power of love. That remains intact. The Disney version simply opts to make both characters sympathetic from the get-go and make the hero/villain through line cleaner since the film’s target audience is going to skew younger than Cocteau’s.
        .
        It also enables the film’s narrative to switch between the POV’s of the respective lead characters. This is the first version, after all, in which the Beast has retainers with whom he speaks at length and who also have an emotional stake in the outcome. Their fate is his. If you don’t understand what’s at stake, then their urgency and personal investment either makes no sense or is, at best, obscure.
        .
        Taking (again) one of your own examples – would you begin to tell your own version of the “Three Little Pigs” by saying something like “Houses of straw and sticks won’t keep out a wolf but bricks will, so, anyway, once upon a time, there were three little pigs…”?
        .
        Sure. It’s been done, in a kid’s book that basically tells the story from the POV of the wolf.
        .
        Basically it does the same thing that the Disney BatB does: It presupposes that the viewer, even the youngest, is going to have experienced the story in some form or another and know going in the Beast’s true nature. So rather than try and surprise viewers with something that is no surprise at all, they upend the narrative and make the twists and turns of how one gets to the end more important than a revelation.
        .
        Faulting Disney’s BatB because they reveal what’s at stake for everyone concerned up front is like saying that any episode of “Columbo” is pointless because we know who did it in the first ten minutes. Just because you play with the order in which information is doled out in the narrative doesn’t mean the story’s ruined. It’s just being told in a different order.
        .
        PAD

      4. “Disney does what Disney does. The real issue many have with them is that many people will see their version of a story before they ever read the original. For example, how many people would actually go seek out Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio compared to how many have seen the Disney version.”
        .
        But why does that even matter? If people want to read the book, it’s there for them. If they don’t, so what? It might matter to the author, but since he’s been dead for 120 years, that’s not an issue.
        .
        I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that was later made into a Disney movie. But what’s wrong with that? There are millions of books out there that are worth reading. Yeah, maybe eventually I’ll get around to reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but there are literally hundreds of books I’d rather read first (I’d actually rather read Les Miserables, which I own and have been meaning to read for a while). I can’t say I have any plans to ever read Pinocchio, or Bambi. I just have no interest. And that’s fine, too. I know Disney probably made changes to them, just as they did the Hugo novel. But I don’t think my life is in any way incomplete for only knowing the Disney versions. They’re not books that I would have sought out either way, Disney or no Disney, even as a kid.

      5. Another novel by Dodie Smith other than One Hundred And One Dalmations would be I Capture The Castle (which has also been made into a movie, I’m told). I didn’t even have to look that up.
        .
        By the way, the original Smith version of Dalmations is fantastic. There are all sorts of fun details (particularly about Cruella and her ancestry) that were left out of the film. This is not a criticism of the movie, though, since they stuck pretty close to the book– they simply left out much of the unimportant stuff, which they never would’ve had room for anyway.
        .
        Maybe I should criticise Cocteau for being so different from Apuleius’s original Cupid And Psyche story, which is clearly where Beauty And The Beast originated.

      6. In the case of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, I don’t think anyone WOULD read it, if not for Disney. It’s a germ of an imaginative idea wrapped in a horribly moralistic tale whose point is, apparently, “never, EVER, disobey your parents.” There’s more charm in the first five minutes of the Disney film than in the whole of Collodi’s page count.
        To the other point, if we are to expect new talents to approach old material, we must expect them to leave their own stamp on it. If creative types are only to be slavishly faithful to all that has gone before, then they might as well not touch the old stuff at all. This might be fine for some, but (just as a for instance) do we really want DC to close the book on Superman and say “It’s all been said, by the greatest talents available, and you young folks would just screw it up.”?

      7. Ah, how could I forget about Alice? So I actually have read a book that was adapted by Disney. But I read the book because I loved the movie, so that just adds more weight to Peter’s argument.

        Incidentally, I think both the books and the Disney movie (the animated one… I hate having to add that qualifier) of Alice are brilliant, but for different reasons. The books are like an M.C. Escher drawing. They’re surreal, but very precise and mathematical, and everything fits tightly together. The movie is more like a Jackson Pollack painting: free-wheeling, whimsical, anarchic. I love them both.

    2. I’m not complaining about Disney making another version.
      .
      I’m not complaining about Disney not following Cocteau, or saying they should ha (i cited FTT simply to point out that more than a few people like the Cocteau and apparently feel it’s definitive).
      .
      No, my problem with the Disney B&tB is the same i have with many productions (and not just Disney, by a long shot) that take a well-told story, twist it until all that remains are a few character names, and then throw it out to a wide audience that doesn’t know the original, resulting in the original story becoming even less well known than it is.
      .
      Gresham’s Law as applied to story-telling.
      .
      And my biggest single gripe with the Disney version (which is very pretty, well-written {taking into account ignoring the original story}, well-made and beautifully-presented) is that, apparently, like the publishers who changed the title of the first Harry Potter book for the US, they felt that they had to simplify the story (to the point of vitiating its underlying driving factors).
      .
      Had they not, essentially, done the equivalent of making an animated version of another classic and explaining precisely what Rosebud was and what it meant to Kane in the first minutes of the film, i would have been a touch less annoyed.
      .
      (OTOH, i remember being Very Amused by the occasional “This is nothing like the TV show,” comments i ran across when the Disney came out…)

      1. No, my problem with the Disney B&tB is the same i have with many productions (and not just Disney, by a long shot) that take a well-told story, twist it until all that remains are a few character names, and then throw it out to a wide audience that doesn’t know the original, resulting in the original story becoming even less well known than it is.
        .
        But part of what enables stories and characters to remain vital and part of the human experience IS the fact that they retold and re-retold in various forms, to different audiences in different ways. You’re suggesting that a story be told exactly one way and be frozen in amber, and the history of human storytelling suggests the exact opposite. Did the producers of “West Side Story” commit a crime because they changed Romeo and Juliet to Tony and Maria? For that matter, did Shakespeare have no business writing “Romeo and Juliet” because he was boosting it from other sources, and thus people would wind up associating the story with him rather than the Italian sources from which he took it?
        .
        Gresham’s Law as applied to story-telling.
        .
        Except it’s demonstrably a misapplication. Putting aside the debatable notion the Disney versions are “bad” and would therefore drive out the good, the provable fact is that they have instead done the exact opposite. Rather than drive out previous versions, they have in fact helped to keep those versions in print and accessible to new audiences while other stories by those same authors have fallen away into obscurity. It’s like trashing the BBC’s “Sherlock” pilot, “A Study in Pink,” by asserting that it’s going to somehow damage Conan Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet.”
        .
        And my biggest single gripe with the Disney version (which is very pretty, well-written {taking into account ignoring the original story}, well-made and beautifully-presented) is that, apparently, like the publishers who changed the title of the first Harry Potter book for the US, they felt that they had to simplify the story (to the point of vitiating its underlying driving factors).
        .
        So what? I mean really: So what? So they changed “Philosopher’s Stone” to “Sorcerer’s Stone.” In the long run, what difference does it make? It was still enjoyed by millions of readers and even got kids reading where before they wouldn’t come near a book. Movies routinely simplify or streamline stories. It doesn’t mean the source material has somehow been contaminated. If Disney ever makes a movie of “Tigerheart” that streamlines the narrative but piques the interest of audiences enough to make them want to buy the book, I have zero problem with that.
        .
        Had they not, essentially, done the equivalent of making an animated version of another classic and explaining precisely what Rosebud was and what it meant to Kane in the first minutes of the film, i would have been a touch less annoyed.
        .
        Not a fair comparison since “Citizen Kane” has been told exactly once. Again the point is that it’s reasonable to assume that viewers of BatB already know the Beast’s true nature, so you’re not REALLY ruining anything. You can’t make that same assumption about people experiencing “Kane” for the first time. Plus the fact is that the mystery behind “Rosebud” is simply a device to drive the narrative. The point of the film wasn’t about finding out what Rosebud refers to; the point of the film was to pìšš øff William Randolph Hearst. In that it succeeded, Rosebud or no.
        .
        PAD

      2. Yes, Disney changes things around quite a bit when making an old (“classic” isn’t always an accurate assessment) children’s tale into a movie. They have to – things that work in a tale read to small ones often simply don’t work on film.
        .
        I agree with PAD that the essential message of BatB was that the power of love was great enough to transform the cad the Prince had been into the man the Beast became. Knowing up front how and why the man was a monster, and the deadline he was up against, does not in fact ruin the story; rather, it points up the fact that in the end, the Beast would prefer to let the curse play out, and accept his fate, than to let Belle be taken from him, and her happiness destroyed, by that oaf Gaston.
        .
        The only Disney change I never learned to like was in their version of Alice In Wonderland, where they conflated both of Carroll’s classic Alice tales, ran them through a Mixmaster, and sort of threw the result up on screen. OTOH, at least part of that resentment stems from the fact that every filmed version I’ve seen since then has taken the Disney version as its canon, when Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are both readily available, at bookstores or in libraries. That just points up the fact that people who make movies often don’t even bother to read the source material, which is just depressing.

      3. The only Disney change I never learned to like was…their version of Alice In Wonderland
        .
        For what it’s worth, Walt Disney wasn’t happy with the film either. I think he felt it was the weakest of their feature animation films.
        .
        PAD

      4. Some of Disney’s most extreme changes were to The Jungle Book (amoung other things, if I remember correctly Kaa was a good guy in the Kipling version).
        Even more extreme would be The Rescuers. Other than the two lead characters, it’s a completely different story. The book had Bernard and Miss Bianca, along with a third mouse named Nils, working to free a Norwegian poet from a Turkish prison.
        .
        But the movies are still pretty good.

      5. Some of Disney’s most extreme changes were to The Jungle Book (amoung other things, if I remember correctly Kaa was a good guy in the Kipling version).
        .
        Oh, they pretty much threw the book out for that adaptation. Walt, if I remember, point blank told his people he didn’t want them reading it.
        .
        But after I saw the movie, I sought out and read the book, along with other Kipling work.
        .
        PAD

    3. [I]To which I’d respond: Name another book Carlo Collodi wrote besides “Pinocchio,” off the top of your head. Go ahead, check Wikipedia; I’ll wait.
      .
      For that matter, another book by Felix Salten other than “Bambi?” Another novel by Dodie Smith other than “The One Hundred and One Dalmatians?” A single book by P.L. Travers that didn’t feature Mary Poppins?
      .
      I think a case can be made that people might not, in fact, be seeking out “Pinocchio” at all if it weren’t for Disney’s version. It might just be another forgotten, long out of print novel. When I was a kid, I saw the Disney movie, loved it, and my dad bought me the book and read it to me. If the movie didn’t exist, I’d never have experienced Collodi’s vision. (I remember being stunned when he stomped on the cricket.) I doubt I was unique in that respect.
      .
      Say what you will about adaptations of books, but at least Disney keeps interest in the books alive.
      .
      PAD[/I]

      I suppose that is true in a sense. At least, it is for those of us who are interested in seeking out books in general. I did read Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs because I liked the Disney movie. Still, I do wish people wouldn’t take a movie studios’ take as the last word on any story. Of course, that just leads into wishing people would read more, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

      1. When I saw Mary Poppins on Broadway, the souvenir I picked up was a three-book set of the original P.L. Travers novels. So at least in some cases, Disney is sending people to the original books. (As an aside, wouldn’t it be cool if the merchandisers sold reprints of the early Lee-Ditko Spider-Man at the theater, heck, even Ultimate Spider-Man?)

      2. Dodie Smity wrote “I Capture the Castle” and “The Starlight Barking.” “Starlight” is the true sequel to “101 Dalmatians” and a very sweet read for anyone who cares for strays. “The Castle” is still quite popular in England and is a coming of age story of a writer.

      1. PAD, discount codes for tickets were available at the Marvel booth at NYCC this past October. To not have known about the discount codes at your employer’s booth is ironic and possibly tragic. Unless, of course, your tickets were purchased before then.

  6. This is a well written review. I was there the first night of previews and it looks like they have come a long, long way, at least with the technical aspects of the show. What is troubling to discover from your description is that the book is so confusing and thin still. Given the talent behind the project and the time and energy invested, it is almost unbelievable that it still needs that much work. (Insisting with the Geeks idea for example, or the fashion show, which I am sure looked much better on paper than on stage). I actually liked the music, although I agree that a more cohesive feel and theme would bind the show together better. I am looking forward to seeing it in February to enjoy the finished product, and hopefully to buy the one item that wasn’t on sale: the original soundtrack.

    1. “What is troubling to discover from your description is that the book is so confusing and thin still. Given the talent behind the project and the time and energy invested, it is almost unbelievable that it still needs that much work.”

      If by “book” you mean “plot” then this is, unfortunately, very common. Just look at all the movies with budgets in the dozens or hundreds of millions, yet whose plots are ridiculous, full of holes, or both. I believe the Greeks put spectacle (what we’d call special effects) as the least important element of drama; these days it’s first — and writing is last. Sigh.

      1. Unless you’re talking about the coleseums. Then we’re talking about a people who said, “Hey, you know what would a fight to the death better? How about if in the middle of the fight, a freaking LION popped out of a trap door in the ground?!”
        .
        The Greeks *loved* spectacle. They just couldn’t afford having the lions eat the actors, so they didn’t have it in their plays.

  7. Thanks for the commentary. Based on this, if there’s still a discount available, I might add this to my list for when I go to NYC in May. An unfortunate number of the shows I was hoping to see have announced closings between now and then.

  8. Great Review. I haven’t read many but how could I pass one up written by Peter David?

    After reading the review, i’m feeling pretty darn good about the musical! My mother told me she’s giving me tickets for Christmas (are mommies not the best ever?). With all the negative reviews swirling around, i was a bit worried but as I mentioned before, this review has given me some real positives. Hopefully, the delay will allow the producers to sure this thing up.
    Also interesting:
    1. The JMS mythical origin – I was a big fan of JMS’ run and the mythical origin never bothered me, manily because it was meant to open up the discussion to Peter’s origin, not to rewrite it.
    2. The old fashion Daily Bugle – I like that the Daily Bugle is plucked out of time. Spider-Man is in many ways, timeless. I appreciate that the producers have given a nod to the fact that Peter’s story goes back to the 60’s.
    3. Nods to JMS and Joe Q.- Great fun.
    4. Sinister Six fashion Show- sounds ridiculous!!!
    5. Mary Jane is the love interest – I’m glad MJ is the love interest. Between the erasure of the marriage and the apparent fact that Gwen (and possibly MJ later on in the trilogy) will be a main focus in the new movies, it’s nice to see MJ as a focal point in the play.

    Thank you for writing this review. I couldn’t miss reading your opinion on the play, as i’m a fan of your work on Spider-Man over the years in the comics.

    Ryan Malone

  9. When the changes made by Disney or anyone else turn the source material into what it is not, that is disturbing. Sometimes the new story is more easily accessible to young children or people who grow tired of books without pictures, but it is not >the story<. Let the producers at Disney come up with something new which pleases them, rather than breaking off the ugly bits from preexisting properties.

    "The Scarlet Letter" with Demi Moore is garbage on its own merits. It would remain disturbing even if it made sense and was consistent with 17th Century mores, because it turns moral torture into proto-feminist jargon. Many people (I am not among them) like Robert Redford's "The Natural": It remains a denial of Bernard Malamud's every intention. Corruption does sour things. Growing older does sap strength and intention. It isn't Malamud, so it isn't "The Natural."

    The Walt Disney Company's "The Little Mermaid," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Beauty and the Beast" and dozens of other animated and live action films discard tragedy, character development, harsh fate and other inconvenient factors which get in the way of selling Happy Meals.

    When the author destroys his protagonist, it is not for Michael Eisner to give him a happy ending. The Little Mermaid (NOT Ariel, and the singer of no catchy tunes after her tongue is cut out) throws away a lovely pagan idyll to be annihilated for her failure to find human love; Esmeralda dies; Quasimodo dies; Claude Frollo is an evil S.O.B.; Mary Poppins is intimidating and ugly; and the Beast's household is terrifying, rather than manned by chummy superannuated actors voicing flatware and utensils.

    As for "Spider-Man: TOD," I have not seen it, and do not expect I will. PAD's investment in the character is not something I will pretend to share, but the mutation inflicted on the hero's origin story by this musical just seems stupid. Perhaps Superman should come from St. Louis, rather than Krypton: Who cares about what comic book readers have accepted for 72 years? Let's pep it up!

    1. I don’t know. I’d venture to say there’s no such thing as “the story.” As soon as you present your idea for public view, you sacrifice a significant measure of control over it. Every reader/viewer is going to bring his/her preconceptions and prejudices to bear in his/her interpretation of your idea.
      Has Disney changed stories? Has Disney sanitized stories? No. The stories are still there, in their original form, for anyone with the barest of initiative to pick up and read at their leisure. Disney has done not a blessed thing to them. What Disney HAS done is create a number of, in many cases, very good animated films that use prexisting stories as their basis. That the Disney versions have become the generally accepted versions is not Disney’s fault, but the public’s fault. The general public doesn’t read much, and never has. The average best seller is only read by one one hundredth of the population. Disney subverts no ones intentions, they simply realize their own, in the parameters of their own creations. And they tend to do it really well
      And, to my knowledge, Disney has never sold a Happy Meal to anyone.

      1. When Disney has bought the rights, the copyright has expired or the story is traditional, I doubt there is any means to stop its changes and simplifications, but it is bad form to make changes which substantially alter the meaning of the work. Where the original story is already well known, there is also the risk of appearing to be a Philistine by corrupting it.

      2. Jeffery – my point entirely.
        .
        And i won’t even start to talk about my opinions of what Disney’s done to Pooh.

      3. And i won’t even start to talk about my opinions of what Disney’s done to Pooh.
        .
        They’ve done nothing to Pooh.
        .
        They’ve produced a variety of versions and interpretations that have gone in some truly odd directions, but all the Milne books are still out there, untouched, undisturbed. Not so much as a comma out of place. And there is no doubt in my mind that the films and TV shows continue to stir the interest of children everywhere and serve to keep the source material popular.
        .
        Milne wrote thirty plays. Name one. He wrote quite a few non-Pooh novels. Name one.
        .
        Is it possible that Pooh as a character might still be as vital and popular without benefit of Disney? Sure. But when you stack up the list of Disney films that wind up with continued attention to the source material, as opposed to all the material from those same authors that are obscure or forgotten and have never gotten the Disney Bump, so to speak, you have to start wondering about cause and effect.
        .
        PAD

      4. Milne wrote a play called The Ugly Duckling. It was in an old high school literature book I had.

    2. Do you have a problem with ALL changes made to original stories, or just ones that give them happy endings? Because I fail to see how a filmmaker is obligated to remain in lockstep with the source material. Heck, Stanley Kubrick made his whole career out of doing essentially the same thing as Disney: adapting literary works and altering them to suit his style and purpose.
      .
      Disney’s Little Mermaid is not Andersen’s Little Mermaid. They’re two separate works, and should be judged separately according to what works and what doesn’t work within their own respective story structures. The meaning of the original work is not being altered because it still exists in its original form. The adaptation merely has its own meaning. It’s not a screenwriter’s job to take a novel or short story and simply turn it into a storyboard. It’s his/her job to borrow elements from the source (just as every writer, everywhere borrows material) and shape them into the writer’s own vision. That’s why it’s called an “adaptation.”

    1. Yeah I read about that. And it’s tragic and horrifying for all concerned. Unfortunately, risk of injury is a constant presence in theater. Actors have been injured in performing the circus stunts in “Barnum.” They’ve been skewered by swords in duels in various Shakespearean dramas. Actors have fallen off stages; they’ve had scenery fall on them. A flying effect in a production of a show called “Invisible Man” went horribly wrong and the actor was nearly castrated. Lighting equipment has fallen.
      .
      The incidents just don’t typically get press coverage. The last time there was any serious media coverage of an injury was when Michael Crawford missed a week of performances when injuring himself during a production of “Phantom,” which was a huge and lavish musical that many people said was going to fail.
      .
      PAD

      1. At least one actor has died playing Judas, in a Greek production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1997 when he failed to attach the safety harness before hanging himself.

        Makes me wonder if it’s not just a stylistic choice that since about 2000, I’ve seen a lot more empty nooses dropped onstage than Judases actually shown hanging.

      2. Even if they don’t get press coverage, has any show in recent memory had this many incidents in this short span of time? The show hasn’t even officially opened yet and they’ve had several.

      3. I was about to ask you the same thing, just because you seen to know more about the issue than I do.
        .
        Either way, it’s still a problem. I hope they don’t just fix the one rope issue that caused this accident, but go over everything and check to see if anything else could be more secure.

      4. If the shows didn’t get press coverage, Craig, how would we know if it happened?
        .
        If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it…
        .
        For all we know, somebody actually keeps track of this stuff on their own.
        .
        But I would think that if another show had this many incidents in this short a span of time, it would get attention.

      5. It seems though that this production has had more than it’s fair share of accidents. It seems the expense of the whole thing is starting to move from “Can you believe how much they spent?” to “Can you believe how much they spent so much of it doesn’t work safely?”

  10. PAD said: “Unfortunately, risk of injury is a constant presence in theater. ”

    Sorry Mr. David. But not only are you wrong – you are 100% wrong. Professional actors – of which I am one – do everything to ensure that there is NO risk of injury. Rehearsals, fight coordinators, fight deputies, safety regulations. We do our job before hand so we can perform freely and without thought. We don’t do our job with the understanding that we may get hurt. We do our job with the understanding that we WON’T get hurt. Please don’t speak for us.

    The show should be canceled. The producers are scrambling to get their money back – which they won’t. This is a disaster of a show all around and it shouldn’t take one more actor getting hurt to realize that.

    Please don’t continue to distort that message.

    1. Kathleen David here.
      .
      Peter got most of his information from me: An Equity Stage Manger for more than 20 years in both residential and touring theater. I can speak for Actors since I am part of the Union. I was also the Stage Manager representative on the Equity Council back in Atlanta for several years.
      .
      Accidents DO happen. We do everything to prevent something from going wrong but you take a risk every time you are on stage. They can be minimized, but not eliminated. That’s why they’re called “accidents.” I have many stories from the small glitches to the show stoppers that have happened during my career, plus many others that I’ve heard about from other productions.
      .
      We walk the stage numerous times. We work through choreography so many times that the moves become second nature. We rehearse and rehearse and try to come up with every scenario that could happen.
      .
      And even with all that, stuff happens. Things go wrong. Some patron takes a picture with a flash camera (after we announced twice no photographs) and it goes off in the eyes of one of the guys with swords. Actors know this and deal with whatever is thrown at them.
      .
      The actors in Spider-Man, like the performers in Cirque Du Soliel, know that there is added risk involved in this show with the stunts. They have trained for a long time to deal with any and all things that might happen. They have plenty of spotters and safety checks in place that AEA signed off on before they were allowed to do the first preview. Even with all that, something happened to the harness that the actor was wearing and now they are installing even more redundant systems. The trick that he was doing was not a complicated one. It is in fact one that I had in the “Invisible Man” that was very effective and one night it almost went wrong; but we got out of it and continued the show.
      .
      The show should be canceled? Actors Equity signed off on the show or else it never would have been in previews. If you think that Equity isn’t protecting its people, then your beef is with your union, not Peter.

      1. Well, THERE’s the problem right there. A >stage managerstage manger< goes no further than being stuffed with oats and hay. It isn't really much of a standout on one's CV.

        More seriously, if Peter David feels comfortable poo-pooing onstage injuries, those who read his comments will just have to decide for themselves how much to value his wisdom.

      2. I’m through playing with extraneous keys on the keyboard for now.

        There’s the problem. A Stage Manager would know whereof she spoke, but a Stage Manger is called upon to do no more than being stuffed with oats and hay.

        Ta Da. Forget it.

  11. Being the “most expensive play in history”, Spiderman gets examined by the press with a microscope. I don’t think a performer in Vegas who gets injured in a Cirque du Soleil production would even rate a mention in the local papers. For all we know, this may be a common problem with these acrobatic type shows that was never publicized before the media turned their attention on Spiderman.

    1. If Cirque du Soleil came to NY, and that happened, you’d better believe it would be covered all over.

      It’s New York. It seems like everything and everyone is under a bigger microscope than usual. (Then again, maybe I’, more focusing on the NY press, and you were referring to more national ones?)

      But yes, the expensiveness of the play is a very valid point, Bill. Can’t discount it.

  12. With respect to Ms. David, as a fellow experienced Equity Stage Manager, I agree that accidents- unexpected, unpreventable, hopefully solitary incidents- do still happen, even despite the diligence of professionals like ourselves and our colleagues.

    But a show that has had this many injuries in this short of time has something systemically wrong with it. Yes, theaters are a workplace that present a constant threat of injury, but when a single production racks up this many injuries, and incites the inspection of OSHA and the addition of redundant security measures, then there was something unsafe in the first place. It has been reported that additional safety measures have been added. Why weren’t they there in the first place? A $65M production can’t afford to have placed redundancies and thoroughly tested to predict and avoid this many accidents?

    Shows can afford, artistically, to be messy in previews, but the stage manager in me can’t help but be angered by the pattern present here. Yes, actors, especially aerialists, know that there are risks, but when a musical is racking up a higher injury average than the circus or the WWE, then there was something wrong that goes beyond the idea that ‘theatre is risky’. Even actors should be allowed a safe shop to work in. If there were an office or a car garage with this record, you can believe that would not be acceptable, either.

    1. But a show that has had this many injuries in this short of time has something systemically wrong with it.
      .
      It should be noted that the first injuries happened before the show even opened and they were still working out the problems. Now I’m not entirely sure how you can state with authority that circuses and the WWF have fewer injuries in rehearsal than this show; I’d be surprised if you could because I’m betting you don’t actually know.
      .
      Mendoza’s accident happened back stage and, to the best of my knowledge, had nothing to do with any of the mechanics of the show.
      .
      So basically there’s been one accident directly traceable to the mechanics since the show actually went into previews, and it wasn’t even a flying effect: It was a fairly simple gag that’s routinely used in shows throughout the world (not to mention magic acts). There’s no “pattern.” Now: Is one accident too many? Absolutely. And I suspect that if the cast believed that they truly had an unsafe workplace, they would walk out and I assume Equity would back them up. In fact, I’d think Equity wouldn’t let them return to work tonight if they believed it was an unsafe workplace.
      .
      So…again…it would be nice if people stopped complaining to me about stuff that Equity is signing off on.
      .
      PAD

  13. Peter,

    A very thoughtful review — thanks! I hope the play is a success, but it’s hard to see how the investors are going to get their money back. My one gripe is the name: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. I hate it! Couldn’t they have come up with something better?

  14. To Kathleen

    Saying a profession has “accidents” and saying “risk of injury is a constant presence” are two very different things. You can be a teacher and have a chalkboard fall on your head. Does that mean the entire profession has a constant presence of injury or was it just an accident? Firefighters, bullfighters, racecar drives, sports – these are professions where there’s a constant presence. Spider-Man the Musical – in this production – has a constant presence. But theatre – in general – does not. We don’t go into rehearsals and performances praying that “we’ll be lucky today”. Or that “oh god I hope this isn’t my last performance”. That too is just misleading to suggest that way of thinking.

    And as anyone knows – Actors Equity is the weakest of all the NY unions. They bow to producers requests at the expense of actors. And one of the strongest unions is the IATSE. It’s not their health on the line. But you can bet they will be the most protected should fingers start to point. Look at an interview in the Daily Post – where the rep of the tech company doing the rigging for Spider-Man dared to suggest that it was up to the stunt man – who is wearing a full mask mind you – to be the final check on his equipment. That is just wrong and smacks of buck passing already.

    To say this show should go on because injury is just part of the job is callous and misleading. As David says above, the amount of attention this is getting should be a wake up call that this show – this particular show, not all of theatre in general – is not ready or fit to be public.

    1. But theatre – in general – does not. We don’t go into rehearsals and performances praying that “we’ll be lucky today”.
      .
      Oh, bûllšhìŧ. I’m sorry, I’m calling bûllšhìŧ on that one.
      .
      Actors and the acting profession is THE most superstition-laden in the world.
      .
      Don’t whistle back stage; it’s bad luck.
      .
      Don’t mention the name “MacBeth” in the dressing room before a show, even if you’re in a production of it. If you do, then you have to run outside, turn around three times, then spit (or curse, depending.) In fact, you don’t even call it “Macbeth”; actors refer to it as “the Scottish play.”
      .
      Don’t even wish someone good luck before a show because wishing someone good luck is bad luck. Instead say, “Break a leg.”
      .
      The reason actors are filled with so many superstitions and so many ways to try and ward off bad luck is because they’re always worried something will go wrong.
      .
      And sometimes it does. And it’s terrible when it happens, but they invented the phrase “the show must go on” for a reason. In fact that reason, according to the “Dictionary of Cliches” is: “Don’t let calamity interrupt the proceedings; we mustn’t stop what we are doing, even if something unfortunate has happened; it would make us look bad or worry the spectators. The saying and principle are traditional in the theater, but apparently they both originated in the 19th century with circuses. If an animal got loose or a performer was injured, the ringmaster and the band tried to keep things going so that the crowd would not panic.”
      .
      And I am pretty gøddámņ sick and tired of being accused of not caring about actors, so knock it the hëll off.
      .

      where the rep of the tech company doing the rigging for Spider-Man dared to suggest that it was up to the stunt man – who is wearing a full mask mind you – to be the final check on his equipment.
      .
      Of course it is. Of course it’s the stunt man’s job to be the final check. He’s the one whose ášš is on the line. If he’s not satisfied with it–if he says “this is a no go”–then it doesn’t go. If I were going to do a stunt, it wouldn’t matter how many people said it was good to go; I’d sure as hëll check it myself, just like skydivers pack their own parachutes. And the masks easily slip off; we see them do it at the end of the show, so you have no reason to assume his vision was obstructed.
      .
      You’re distorting that simple reality into something insinuating that no one else bothered to do the checks. Did anyone say that? I doubt they did. Now it’s possible that’s what the Post reported, but heavens, the Post couldn’t POSSIBLY have distorted it or gotten it wrong.
      .
      PAD

      1. Forgive me if I overlooked it, but I missed the part where anyone accused you of not caring about actors.

      2. Forgive me if I overlooked it, but I missed the part where anyone accused you of not caring about actors.
        .
        “Callous”–Noun. Feeling or showing no sympathy for others. Hard-hearted.” Merriam Webster Dictionary.”
        .
        Quoth the person I was replying to:
        .
        To say this show should go on because injury is just part of the job is callous and misleading.
        .
        You’re forgiven.
        .
        PAD

    2. .
      “Look at an interview in the Daily Post – where the rep of the tech company doing the rigging for Spider-Man dared to suggest that it was up to the stunt man – who is wearing a full mask mind you – to be the final check on his equipment. That is just wrong and smacks of buck passing already.”
      .
      Are you serious? He suggested that the guy putting it on and using it should be the final check on the equipment right before using it? Unbelievable!
      .
      That’s sarcasm by the way.
      .
      I’ve watched more than a few stuntmen work up close and personal and even gotten to meet a few and chat with them. Even when they’re not working with their own equipment (which can be more often than I once thought) they’re the people who do the final check on the stuff they’re working with after the initial period of being familiarized with it.

  15. With respect to Mr. David, Mendoza, the third reported injury on the show (last night’s most serious injury was the fourth) was hit on the head by a falling rope while waiting to enter, so the mechanics of the show, even if not visible to the audience, were absolutely involved. Prior to her there was a broken wrist and ankle, and, to be fair, maybe those were the sort of mistakes that happen when performers are doing stunts. But four injuries, now including a major one, in this amount of time, is very unusual. And whether the show is in previews or open is not material- the difference between previews and open is just a distinction of when the critics are invited, and a contractual distinction of how many rehearsal hours you get. Whether or not the show is safe is not something that should still be getting worked on in the same way you are deciding whether or not to make some cuts to the musical numbers. The workplace of a theater, and that is what it is, should be safe for the workers from the very first technical rehearsal.

    I am not saying you don’t care about actors, but I refuse the assertion that to perform in the modern theatre is an inherently dangerous profession.

    Yes, there are some long-standing superstitions to the theatre, but I think that as professionals working in the 21st century we can expect better ‘luck’ than those of the 19th. And, to be fair, not whistling onstage is because a lot of riggers back in those earlier centuries came from shipping, and communication was often made by whistle, so to idly whistle onstage, say, during a load-in, may be akin to giving a cue to ‘go ahead and drop in the bar’, perhaps onto the idle whistlers head. (And, lest anyone wonder, there is no evidence that Mendoza was whistling when such a thing happened to her, rather she was standing where she was supposed to stand, waiting to make her entrance)

    But just because there are popular superstitions embraced by some people in theatre who think it will help ensure a positive result, but that doesn’t mean they are worried for their safety anymore than the batter who is in the habit of crossing himself and spitting before a pitch is doing so because they hope to get to base without injury. Magical thinking to achieve a positive outcome is something a lot of people in creative and competitive sports embrace. It doesn’t mean every person who avoids saying Macbeth is doing so because they really think doing plays and musicals for a living means they have put themselves in harms way.

    The fact that further protocols and redundancies have been added after the most recent injury (and that is a quote from Actor’s Equity, check their website if you don’t trust the Post) leads me to believe that proper safety was not resourced or prioritized prior to this injury- and that there were safer backups technically possible that were not the original plan. Of course human error can ruin even the best made plans, but to use the analogy, could a reported $65M production not afford to pack a spare parachute for its performers?

    And, yes, Equity signed off on these measures, and don’t think I don’t blame them for doing so. So far the way this story has unfolded has reminded me just how weak of a union AEA tends to be when it comes to fighting with producers on behalf of their members. You better believe that if there were 4 IATSE (union stage crew, for those playing at home) injuries in the same span of time there would have already been a vote to walk out, citing unsafe conditions. But, unfortunately, in this economy especially, Equity tends to never get tough with producers in the same way.

    1. With respect to Mr. David, Mendoza, the third reported injury on the show (last night’s most serious injury was the fourth) was hit on the head by a falling rope while waiting to enter, so the mechanics of the show, even if not visible to the audience, were absolutely involved.
      .
      Okay, but–again–things fall backstage. Not to minimize or make light of Mendoza’s injury at all, but…they sometimes fall. I’ve been to shows and heard things crash backstage–not routinely, but it happens. And I always think, Boy, I hope no one was standing near that. If you’re a stage manager, you know this, and the fact that you are shocked–SHOCKED–to discover it happened here just sounds odd to me.
      .
      But four injuries, now including a major one, in this amount of time, is very unusual.
      .
      I still think it’s unfair to incorporate rehearsal time into the mix since, again, there’s no tracking data that any of us has access to that indicates how many injuries occur during rehearsals. But let’s allow, for the sake of argument, that it’s unusual. So is the show itself. The real question at hand is: Is the show itself SO unusual that it should cease production because it is inherently too dangerous. You and others obviously feel the answer is yes. I might give that perspective more consideration if it weren’t for the fact that many of the people saying that across the board (and by that I mean on various message boards) are the same ones who have been asserting that the show should never have gone up nearly from day one.
      .
      It’s an attitude I find inherently odd, this actively rooting for failure. On the one hand you’ve got Julie Taymor who clearly believes that Spider-Man is a character of mythic proportions, deserving to be linked thematically to stories going back thousands of years, not to mention worthy of being the subject of a Broadway musical. Meanwhile you’ve got the ostensible long-time fans of the character who feel that he–well–isn’t. Why, I wonder, does Taymor think far more highly of Spider-Man than comics fans do?
      .
      The workplace of a theater, and that is what it is, should be safe for the workers from the very first technical rehearsal.
      .
      It should be AS safe AS possible. There’s no disputing that. And cars should be as safe as possible, but you’re still taking a risk the moment you get behind a wheel.

      I am not saying you don’t care about actors,
      .
      That was the other guy.
      .
      but I refuse the assertion that to perform in the modern theatre is an inherently dangerous profession.
      .
      I think “inherently risky” more accurate, particularly where stunts are involved. I mean, I think the risk in staging a Noel Coward play is pretty minimal, but the more gags you cram into a show, the more the risk escalates. In two separate productions of “Man of La Mancha,” as Sancho I’ve had to make my entrance down a lowered stair case in the dark without my glasses–and in the first production, walking backwards while carrying a trunk and wearing boots with heels on them. One misstep and I easily break my neck. Not to go all Captain Kirk on you, but risk is our business. And one of the stage manager’s jobs is to minimize that risk. But you cannot eliminate the possibility of accidents. You just can’t, and anyone who says a show should be terminated because it’s impossible to do so is kidding himself. It’s Zeno’s arrow; you can infinitely close the distance, but you can’t get absolutely get there.
      .
      Yes, there are some long-standing superstitions to the theatre, but I think that as professionals working in the 21st century we can expect better ‘luck’ than those of the 19th.
      .
      Irrelevant to my point, which was to address the assertion that an actor doesn’t hope for luck when he goes out on stage.
      .
      And yes, I happen to know the origins of the no-whistling superstition. And I also know the origin of “break a leg.” I even know the origins of some of the fears surrounding “Macbeth,” another play that obviously no one should mount because it’s cursed. The point is that we don’t have former sailors manning the stage rigging anymore, but the tradition still stands. Because things going wrong, sometimes
      .
      But just because there are popular superstitions embraced by some people in theatre who think it will help ensure a positive result, but that doesn’t mean they are worried for their safety anymore than the batter who is in the habit of crossing himself and spitting before a pitch is doing so because they hope to get to base without injury.
      .
      Right, because nobody EVER gets injured in baseball. I was actually going to say that professional athletes are right behind actors in terms of being superstitious. Why? Because of the inherent risks of their profession. The superstitions don’t arise independently of the environment; form follows function. They’re just another way of coping with the reality in which they’re operating.
      .
      The fact that further protocols and redundancies have been added after the most recent injury (and that is a quote from Actor’s Equity, check their website if you don’t trust the Post) leads me to believe that proper safety was not resourced or prioritized prior to this injury-
      .
      See, where it leads ME to believe that they thought that using the current safety protocols for a simple bit that’s been used countless times in theater for years should have been enough. Which it was. Until it wasn’t. Just like (to keep with baseball) standard batting helmets were just fine to protect the player’s heads. Until it wasn’t. So they designed and implemented new batting helmets. Now it’s entirely possible that there were plenty of fans running around on line declaring that MLB was remiss in not using even safer helmets beforehand and this lapse clearly indicates that MLB should be shut down, but I doubt it.
      .
      PAD

      1. Thank you for your reply, even if I disagree with much of it, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to talk about the issue-

        I am not surprised that you know the origins of some of the superstitions that some people working in theatre have embraced, I figured you would know where they came from, but I still don’t believe some people’s avoidance of “good luck” has anything to do with them fearing for their life. Maybe it did centuries ago, when the theatre was a much more dangerous place to work, but those fears of disaster have codified over the years into traditions, and rituals to wish for success. Like the player at bat. I don’t think those with at-bat rituals are thinking about how they have chosen a risky life in a dangerous sport, I think those rituals are about wishing for an excellent hit. Or, to take it out of physical endeavors, there are writers who have a sense of ritual surrounding their typewriter, or a kind of pen or notebook, but just because they are embracing superstition doesn’t mean they are hoping not to get injured at the desk. I don’t think the superstition of some people working in theatre shows that we have all accepted to be in an inherently risky business- at least, not if we are talking about physical danger. Risk of failure on a night to night basis? Sure. But there we may simply disagree, and I don’t want to digress to much.

        To be clear, I actually am not calling for the show to be closed forever, nor have I been rooting for its failure from day one. That was the other guy. And I do get the suspicion that there are those looking for this show to fail, and that these injuries are just another thing to criticize. And I can see where that would inspire a hearty defense, such as you have given.

        ButI have no gain in this show failing and putting people out of work. I will admit rolling my eyes at some of what I’d heard about the show, and hadn’t planned on seeing it, but I didn’t really care that much about it one way or the other until it became a story of a productions ambitions injuring my fellow members at an alarming rate. But past shows that take a Vegas approach to Broadway, like Tarzan, did not have this sort of injury rate right out of the gate. This is not usual, this is unusual. And, given what has been reported about a lot of the chaos surrounding this production overall, I honestly think this show is dangerous. And that the desire for this show to succeed, as well as the market pressure of what is already owed to investors, is pushing this show to- to use the old term- ‘do more with less’. To continue to push the boundaries of the venue, performers, and crew to overcome expectations and win the day, perhaps without spending too much more time and money. And that, I think, is a dangerous formula. Now, I’m not there, so of course I don’t know for sure that this is happening, but it reminds me of past experiences where you have to really advocate for safety against the desire for spectacle.

        What has angered me is that the injury rate has been this high in this short of a time, and after such a serious injury, the show re-opened so soon. I don’t feel that new safety measures need to be reactive, which is to say, adding redundancies after serious accidents bring them to light. Or finding out where parts of the set can end up after a concussion. That, to me, does not seem like risks have been minimized. Rather, it seems like a show that has stuffed Vegas-style tricks into a non-Vegas venue, added and changed many tricks late in the process, and perhaps employed actors (even ones with aerial experience) when they may have been better off with actually using the company of a circus, has led to a workplace riskier than it needs to be.

        Yes, I know very well that risks are possible in the theater. I am not shocked that injury is at all possible, but that one production has this record already, and that the injuries are getting MORE serious as time goes on. That is how the injuries are trending. Not to keep changing metaphors, but if there was an intersection in your town that had four accidents in a month, people would likely feel that there is something wrong with that SPECIFIC intersection. What doesn’t wash with me is the general statement that, ‘well, we all know driving is dangerous’.

        And the work of the production, not just the stage managers, who are doing their best with what they are given, I would guess, but the production is to invest the time and money necessary to test and make sure that things are as safe as possible, and to be reasonable about what elements, as flashy and exciting as they may be, that are not worth the risk. Now, I’m not working on that show, so I can only speculate, just like any of us talking about it, but something smells to me about their record so far. And from past experience I have to wonder if the desire to have this show push the limits of the venue and audience expectations in terms of spectacle cut into what is REASONABLY safe. From experience I know that, when you are defending the safety of the actors, you are usually defending it against those with an interest in an ‘exciting’ result- who just want that fall to be from a little higher, or for that fight to go a little faster, or wouldn’t it be exciting if there was smoke and a strobe light during the fight, etc.

        Put another way, if I was your SM on Man of La Mancha, we would have found another way for you to make your entrance. What you described was a bad plan, and if you were doing it 8 shows a week for long enough, you probably would have taken that fall. I’m glad you didn’t.

        To me, from this distance, it seems like there are some bad plans still going on in Spider-Man. And as time goes on, they keep finding more and more holes in their safety with these injuries. I am not saying close it forever and quit, but I would be more comfortable if they had taken more than an afternoon to sort things out. In my gut I just keep thinking this whole debate is going to end with someone paralyzed or killed. And for what?

      2. I’m not replying to the bulk of what you’re saying because you’re mostly just reiterating what you said above…plus since you’re not breaking up the grafs, it’s hard on the eyes. (To do so, you put a period below a graf, like this)
        .
        But I will respond to this:
        .
        In my gut I just keep thinking this whole debate is going to end with someone paralyzed or killed. And for what?
        .
        I’m sure that’s what Idina Menzel asked herself as she was falling through the trap door in “Wicked” that sent her to the hospital with a cracked rib. Which is why “Wicked” was closed down for good. Same thing when Nathan Lane fell through a trap door in Lincoln Center, closing down “The Frogs” forever.
        .
        That’s likely what people demanded when the Flying Wallendas famed pyramid collapsed and several of them died. Which is why Ringling Brothers was closed down for good and hire wire acts were banished from memory.
        .
        Pity poor Mary Martin who, during rehearsals for “Peter Pan,” was slammed into a wall during a flying effect, breaking her elbow. The show was promptly closed down, the flying effects deemed too dangerous, and she never flew again.
        .
        And alas, Christina Applegate, who busted her foot while “Sweet Charity” was in previews out of town, never got to play the role on Broadway.
        .
        Shame about all those shows.
        .
        Except…wait. None of those shows were closed down prematurely. They went on.
        .
        And for what, you ask?
        .
        Because in show business, that’s what you do. You fix what’s wrong, and you go on. That’s the way it’s always been. I didn’t make it that way; I didn’t come up with that philosophy. That’s just hundreds of years of tradition.
        .
        If you think it’s a dumb tradition, okay, but it’s just an odd belief for a stage manager to have.
        .
        I should emphasize, by the way, that if the cast says they want out, that’s a different story. Then it’s game over. You have to honor that. But as long as they want to keep at it, that has to count for something.
        .
        PAD

      3. PAD, you just named several shows that had serious accidents. However, all your examples were of shows that had one serious accident.
        .
        We’re not having the current discussion after one accident. There have been several serious injuries for this musical. I think you can understand why that looks more like a troubling sign than a single accident would.

      4. It’s just possible that they have exceeded what is physically, legally and ethically feasible. And it;s the legal part that will hurt them.
        .
        I mean, it will not take a genius lawyer–and rumor has it that New york city has a few here and there–to make mincemeat out of them if this keeps happening.
        .
        Here’s the problem–they CAN do the show safely. We know this because the show HAS gone off without a hitch. We also know that what seems to be a significantly high percentage of shows have had at least one mishap.
        .
        As PAD points out, this is also true of other plays. But I would caution that it is a big difference between pointing out that Hamlet has had accidents happen and having a situation where a particular version of Hamlet is filling up emergency rooms.
        .
        Every stunt has a percentage likelihood of failure. Even if the human element operates perfectly–a big assumption–wires eventually break, harnesses eventually tear, etc. There must come a point where the sheer volume, complexity and variety of stunts almost ensures that there will be a higher percentage of accidents than the producers will be able to justify, or that the courts will allow.
        .
        Are they at or near that point? Hopefully not but with every additional injury they get closer. Every fall is a potential death, if you hit just right. The producers have got to be terrified at the prospect of some shark getting them on the stand and grilling them about why a particular stunt was absolutely needed, whether every possible precaution was taken (and the answer is always no, since it is impossible to take every precaution) and whether a 65 million dollar musical based on Spider-Man is worth dying for. Unfair questions but they will probably work.
        .
        On the other hand, the WWE gets away with pretty dangerous stunts that cause injury on a weekly basis. Then again, many of those stunts are improvised by the talent on the spot so it would be difficult to blame the producers. When things have gone really badly–the Owen Hart death being the most obvious example– they paid dearly.
        .
        I just think it’s unfortunate that, based on PAD’s review (and others from people I also trust) that the producers don’t have a really great story to fall back on if the spectacle has to be scaled down. How hard is it to have a spider-man play with a good story and snappy dialogue? there are what, thousands of published stories and a few dozen writers who have written them, all available. Not to suck up to the host but if I were a producer there would have been no WAY I would not have invited PAD and a few others to punch up the script, make a few suggestions. Any cost would be as shekels compared to every other aspect of the play…and you KNOW they would have gotten at least a few good lines if nothing else.

  16. I’m not calling for it to be shut down. The actors know the risks and willingly take them. I hope everyone will be able to work through all the technical (and other) issues and the show will be a rousing success.

    But if (when) that happens, and if I get the opportunity to take my family to the show, I will have to think long and hard about what might happen if the supports break while the actors are above the audience. Then I’ll make the decision if that risk is one I, an audience member, am willing to take.

    1. That’s perfectly fair, and don’t think it didn’t cross my mind. Ultimately I decided it was worth the risk, same as I do on the rare occasions when I have field level seats at a baseball game and could be struck by a foul line drive or an errant, accidentally released bat.
      .
      If you want to avoid the issue of personal safety, you go for seats in the Mezz or balcony. Of course then you might miss some stuff. Kath and I decided to take what we considered minimal risk in order to be sure we missed nothing.
      .
      PAD

  17. Sorry to not know the paragraph trick– this is the first time I’ve commented on your blog, and I haven’t encountered that in other blogs I have contributed comments to, but thanks for showing me how that works, and sorry for the big blocks of text.
    .
    I do hope the show goes on without injuries trending upwards the way they have, and I never suggested no injuries happen, or that no single injury as what you’ve mentioned, singular anecdotes from over the decades, should mean a production shut down forever. It may have been lost in my lack of paragrpah breaks, but I am not saying the show should close forever.
    *
    I was glad to hear on today’s news that the Dept of Labor is actually still investigating, and it is still being decided whether the show is safe enough to go on tonight, so actually these remedial safety measures aren’t being as hasty as the hours-later green light initially reported. That is not a premature closing. That is an act of outside regulators (finally) intervening, an unusual step, because there is clearly something unusually dangerous about this show.
    *
    But the show will go on, and I hope it goes on safely. To me, that is the better tradition. If a few shows get cancelled in the interest of safety, resulting in a show that can more safely run for months or years more, how is that not a better outcome? Is that not worth a few shows that don’t go on? That is what I mean by ‘for what’? To rush back into performance tonight, in the interest of a single audience, if the due dilligence hasn’t been done is not noble, it’s reckless. These are not battles, they’re shows. And there are time to do more shows once these problems are solved.
    *
    So that is my belief as a stage manager, and actually it is not unusual. I would argue it is exactly the job. And that is why, when I ran a 9 month international tour of a very physical show with fights and stunts, and my only accident report was for my own foolish head when I was crawling along the deck checking the groundcloth at a load-in, and didn’t look before I stood up to see that a pipe was in.
    *
    I don’t believe in luck, but I will acknowledge that on those shows some injuries could of happened that didn’t, but I also know that my cast, crew, and I worked hard to prevent injury and succeeded, and the show went on safely. To me, that is a better mantra for a stage manager to have. That may sound less noble and magical than ‘the show must go on!’, but that is a shop I would rather run, and the kind of stage managers I would rather act with.

    1. I was glad to hear on today’s news that the Dept of Labor is actually still investigating, and it is still being decided whether the show is safe enough to go on tonight, so actually these remedial safety measures aren’t being as hasty as the hours-later green light initially reported.
      .
      Right because, gloriosky, the Post got it wrong. So, for that matter, did the Daily News, which asserted that there had been four accidents “since the show opened,” which is also inaccurate.
      .
      That is not a premature closing.
      .
      Yes, but I was also talking in broader strokes about the many people who have indeed been declaring that the show be shuttered. Plus I was addressing your direct question of asking “what for?” as in what the purpose of continuing was if people were at risk. And i explained that, well, that’s what show people do.
      .
      That is an act of outside regulators (finally) intervening, an unusual step, because there is clearly something unusually dangerous about this show.
      .
      I doubt anyone’s disputing that. When you’re doing things no one has ever done before, yeah, it ratchets up the risk factor. Again, though–and there’s only so many ways to say it–something falling from overhead is not that shocking (and unfortunately the actress was there when it happened.) And the gag that failed was in fact not one of the more dangerous aspects. Perhaps they were so busy concentrating on the really tricky stuff–none of which has caused injury since the show went up–that they just figured the stuff that was long-established would just, y’know, work as it was supposed to and didn’t give it the attention they should have. Now they know better.
      .
      But the show will go on, and I hope it goes on safely. To me, that is the better tradition.
      .
      Well, obviously, but it’s not like the saying is, “The show must go on as long as no one gets hurt.” It’s a rallying cry to declare that adversity is something to be overcome. If part of overcoming it is to make sure things won’t go wrong, then so much the better.
      .
      It’s just a perverse coincidence that for all the complaints of lack of fidelity to the source material, the one they seem to be having no trouble with is what the hero has been complaining about for nearly fifty years: Peter Parker’s crap ášš luck.
      .
      PAD

      1. We can second-guess the cause of a single accident, like Monday night’s, all we want. But the fact remains that this is the fourth accident since they’ve started working in that space. If it was a singular event, there would be less cause for concern. As with some of the historic accidents you mentioned in the earlier post.
        *
        The problem is, to return to sports analogies, their batting average for injuries so far is terrible, and I hope it doesn’t get worse.
        *
        And, yes, “The show must go on! (no matter what)” is a much more romantic notion “The show must go on if it is safe and ready”. *
        *
        And of course, the real saying is the one that producers and owners of the productions have benefited from for centuries. Often at the health and expense of the workers.
        *
        To shift ground to something more familiar, if there was an old saying that went “But the comics must see print!” would that make any freelancer feel better if they get exploited in the course of the publication? What adding a dash of history and nobility (“Don’t worry, artists have been screwed for centuries! It’s tradition!”) make that any more palatable?
        *
        It may not be a romantic notion to wish for the 21st century theatre to not be a place where there is the constant presence of danger. But I think it is reasonable. And possible, as long as the proper resources are allotted. Here’s hoping that will be the case at the Foxwoods tonight.

      2. And of course, the real saying is the one that producers and owners of the productions have benefited from for centuries. Often at the health and expense of the workers.
        .
        You know, I don’t get this. I really don’t. I don’t understand the picture of actors that you and “Peter” are trying to paint.
        .
        Because the one that you are both consistently putting forward is a group of people who are such, as Robert Burns might have put it, wee timorous beasties, that they are–
        .
        Too afraid to stand up to producers.
        .
        Are too afraid to walk away from a paycheck even if their own safety is on the line.
        .
        Even when they organize, their union is unwilling, unready, or unable to look after their interests.
        .
        And you are making these arguments to a guy who for the last twenty years has not hesitated to speak out, directly and publicly, about things that I find to be wrong, regardless of the blowback I might experience, up to and including openly and repeatedly confronting the people who sign my paychecks. Who has not hesitated to walk off assignments for principled reasons a lot less critical than matters of life and death.
        .
        Now: if your goal is to try and convince me that, rather than be sympathetic to them–which I am–I should instead have little patience for them because they are–as you seem to feel–unwilling or unable to stand up for their lives…well, you’re doing a hëll of a good job.
        .
        What could they possibly have to be afraid of if they say, “We’re out.” What could go wrong if they put their foot down and say, “We want the show scaled back or we’re not going on?” What do you think the producers are going to do? Sue them? That’s insane. If the cast declared a work stoppage, they would have 100% of public opinion behind them. I am confident that a slew of theater-loving lawyers would volunteer to handle their case pro bono.
        .
        I still firmly believe the work environment should be as safe as humanly possible, but the more you guys describe poor, terrified, actors who are afraid to stand up for themselves when life and limb may be at stake, the more you’re just reflecting poorly on them.
        .
        PAD

  18. Actors and the acting profession is THE most superstition-laden in the world.
    .
    I dunno about that one. I mean, you’re not supposed to talk about a no hitter during a no hitter? Or the fact that some athletes have admitted to wearing the same pair of underwear day after day (hopefully washed now and then) if they’re on a hitting streak?
    .
    And let’s not even get into what Moises Alou used to do, among others:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640412099376447.html
    .
    🙂

    1. As I said, I was tempted to put that athletes were a close second, but I didn’t want to send the thread off into a side discussion about the dangers of athletics. So much for that hope.
      .
      Also, the superstitions of athletes are far more individualized. The acting ones are universal and common.
      .
      PAD

  19. Of course this is your personal forum, Mr. David, so any reply I could give in the manner you gave me will ultimately throw daggers my way. But I say bûllšhìŧ to you as well sir.

    .

    Why is it you keep moving away from your own words? Let’s backtrack here so we get back to the root of the problem of your words. Not about accidents. Not about unlucky sayings. But your words and the situation at hand:
    .
    PAD: “it’s tragic and horrifying for all concerned. Unfortunately, risk of injury is a constant presence in theater. ”
    .
    ‘Unfortunately’. That’s your word. ‘Those accidents are tragic and horrifying unfortunately it comes with the game’. That’s what you’re saying yes? If I’m wrong, please do tell. But if that’s what you’re saying, you are misinformed no matter what the stage manager in Kathleen tells you.
    .
    I’m not rooting for failure because I don’t believe in Spider-Man (what a weird tangent. But one I find most older professional comic book writers go to because it’s the easy on-high attitude to have). I’m rooting because – once again – actors are being exploited and it needs to stop. Kirby anyone?
    .
    You say we don’t have access to the rehearsal process. You say the Daily Post is distorting the facts. But you believe the actors of the show “want to keep at it”. “The show must go on”. That’s a huge assumption to make. How do we know they aren’t scared shitless – not because “Theatre = risks”, but because this specific show – as David and Jason and Bill are pointing out – is unsafe. Not theatre. Spider-Man the Musical. If you’re going to call me out on my usage of words, I’m going to continue calling you out on yours.
    .
    And I keep seeing this line: “the actors know the risks and willingly take them”. NO! Defiantly no!. This is why this message needs to be stopped. The director and stunt coordinators do not say to an actor “Okay. You’re going to jump off this bridge. But it might not always work. Are you okay with that?”. No no no. The actors don’t go into that show every night thinking 15% of the time the rigs and special effects aren’t going to work. They trust in their director and crew to ensure that it will work everytime. Accidents happen. We’ve established that. But when they do, it should be a question of what went wrong and why are they happening. Not “unfortunately the show must go on”.

  20. Why is it you keep moving away from your own words?
    .
    I don’t. People keep coming up with brand new words and attacking those because the ones I say are pretty much right. For instance, I said, as you quote:
    .

    PAD: “it’s tragic and horrifying for all concerned. Unfortunately, risk of injury is a constant presence in theater.”
    .
    Which I stand behind. You turned it into:
    .
    ‘Those accidents are tragic and horrifying unfortunately it comes with the game’. That’s what you’re saying yes? If I’m wrong, please do tell.
    .
    You are wrong. What I said asserts that, while risk can be minimized, it’s always present. You transformed it into my stating that accidents are inevitable, and, oh well, that’s the way it goes. My statement is reasoned and accurate. Your rewording of it is inaccurate and makes me sound like a heartless jerk. Since you felt the need to rephrase it and attack the rephrase, I can draw only two conclusions: Either you seriously couldn’t comprehend the difference, or else you did it deliberately in order to continue painting me as–to use your word–callous.
    .
    Deal with what I actually say or don’t, but rephrasing my sentiments to your liking doesn’t do much to persuade me of anything.
    .
    PAD

  21. “You transformed it into my stating that accidents are inevitable…” No I didn’t. You did:
    .
    “The reason actors are filled with so many superstitions and so many ways to try and ward off bad luck is because they’re always worried something will go wrong.” And I’m here to tell you that no. No we’re not.
    .
    “Either you seriously couldn’t comprehend the difference, or else you did it deliberately in order to continue painting me as–to use your word–callous.” I’m not trying to paint you as anything (you do that well enough yourself if we’re going to delve into personal attacks) – I’m letting everyone else know that – as someone CURRENTLY in professional theatre – the situation is not as Peter David is making it out to be. Perhaps that was the case decades ago, but currently, it’s a huge deal when something goes wrong. It isn’t written off as “that’s the way of things”, it isn’t placed on the actors and it most definitely does not put theatre as a high risk profession.

    1. “The reason actors are filled with so many superstitions and so many ways to try and ward off bad luck is because they’re always worried something will go wrong.” And I’m here to tell you that no. No we’re not.
      .
      Two things: First, you’re now off on a completely different tangent. You’ve dropped your twisting of my words into things I didn’t say and are now asserting that my description of state of mind is wrong. And second, you’re basing that assertion on–wait for it–yourself. Apparently you speak for the whole of the acting profession. That’s one hëll of an accomplishment. I’d suggest that someone with such overwhelming clarity of vision try to take over the Guild that you hold in such contempt.
      .
      Meantime I remember the time I was in a dressing room as our theater group prepared for that afternoon’s performance, and one of the cast members casually mentioned she had tickets for a performance of “Macbeth.” If a power cable had fallen into the middle of the room, the reaction couldn’t have been more electric. She instantly went ashen and said, “Oh my God.” Most of the cast members were seriously freaking out, shouting, “You’ve jinxed us! Something horrible is going to happen! Something disastrous! Fix it! Fix it!” She ran outside, spun around three times and shouted a profanity as loudly as she could…which certainly confused the senior citizens standing outside eating the complimentary bagels.
      .
      So you want to tell me that you have no concern about luck and no worries, ever, that anything will go wrong, and I shrug and say fine.
      .
      But I’m not making out “the situation” to be anything other than what it is. I’m not diminishing its importance and I’m not soft pedaling it, and your repeated attempts to insinuate that I am are becoming almost as tiresome as your insistence that actors are incapable of watching out for their own interests. You are presenting a rather pathetic description of your profession: it’s populated by people who confidently expect that nothing will ever go wrong and when it does are too afraid and too disorganized to do something about it, and must depend upon public pressure to shut down a show when they can accomplish that by saying, “We’re out.”
      .
      What a lousy opinion you have of your fellow actors.
      .
      PAD

  22. This is all quite interesting, however, I don’t see myself making a trip from Arizona to NY to see the musical at any time, regardless of how long it runs. Maybe if a touring version makes it to Phoenix at some point.

    I do feel fortunate that I did travel to Chicago to see Spamalot when it was in previews (including getting to see the songs cut before it went to Broadway). About the only mishap I spotted during that performance was whoever was tasked with throwing the Killer Rabbit back over the wall didn’t throw it quite far enough and someone had to pick it up and throw it the rest of the way…. Although, as in Peter’s case where most of the audience was not really comic readers, the audience I saw Spamalot were mostly people who had likely never seen a Monty Python episode, let alone the original film the musical was based on.

  23. “I still firmly believe the work environment should be as safe as humanly possible, but the more you guys describe poor, terrified, actors who are afraid to stand up for themselves when life and limb may be at stake, the more you’re just reflecting poorly on them.”
    .
    No, but I expect the union that is funded by their dues, and the production who is providing a work environment to them, to be responsible, and to look out for their safety better than it seems they are. I think they should have the safest working conditions possible, too, but it seems like it took these accidents and bad PR for that remedial due diligence to be done.
    .
    And I don’t agree that being outspoken about what outrages me about the safety record of this production, and being upset with my own union over this issue, necessitates that I am calling my fellow members timid cowards. For someone who is clearly sensitive to having his words misquoted or rephrased, you seem very quick to do so yourself to others in this conversation.

    1. Ooo. Another word substituted for what I said.
      .
      I didn’t say “cowards.” YOU said it, just now. And all I did was use Robert Frost to summarize the way that you and “Peter” are describing them. You describe an arena where producers routinely dominate the actors and pummel their union into submission, which you guys said is weak and routinely knuckles under. I said they were afraid to stand up; you took umbrage. Would you prefer if I said they were too weak to stand up? They’re too helpless to stand up? You’re the one who has decided that the producers have all the power and the actors none, in defiance of what common sense would indicate since the producers sure can’t sing, dance or act.
      .
      Now me: I’m giving the cast the courtesy of allowing for the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they want to continue with the show not because of a paycheck. Not because they won’t stand up to the producers. Maybe–and this is really out there, I know–they want the show to continue because they believe in the value of it.
      .
      Have you seen it? With your own eyes? Because when it does work, it is absolutely freaking breath taking. And unless and until the cast themselves walk out, I’m willing to think that maybe they love being a part of that and don’t want the bad luck that’s plagued them to put an end to something they’ve put so much effort into. Maybe–my God!–they actually want their opening night.
      .
      Because I don’t think they’re cowards, or timid. Then again, I’m not the one who described them as unable or unwilling to stand up to the producers. I’m not the one who said the axiom “the show must go on” exists so that “producers and owners of the productions have benefited from for centuries. Often at the health and expense of the workers.” It can’t be that the actors THEMSELVES embrace the notion of determination. The actors have to be rubes, taking risks, slogging on, while all the time the money guys are grinning. What a sad view of the theater that is.
      .
      PAD

  24. Rather than waste everyone’s time quibbling about why or whether I may have misquoted a single I was arguing shouldn’t be put in my mouth anyway, I will just defer to the statement from the Dept. of Labor about why the show actually wasn’t safe enough to go on tonight, but hopefully with that time spent, will be safe enough to go on tomorrow.
    .
    I’m personally glad that an outside regulator has taken this action, and that the system is kicking in to insure safe conditions, even if they are arriving late, to add redundancies that, I think, probably should have been there in the first place. Again, to return to the metaphor, I think a production this size, and this ambitious, can afford to ‘pack a second parachute’. And, for context, we can all recall some famous stories over the decades of one-off injuries, but I can’t remember a show closed down by the Dept. of Labor or OSHA in the past. Which is not to say it hasn’t happened, but it is certainly not usual. But enough of me, here is an excerpt from Playbill.com’s story:

    “A spokesperson for the New York Department of Labor explained in a Dec. 22 media conference call the new protocol that will be in place to help ensure the safety of actors in Spider-Man. All 41 maneuvers that involve a tether, rope or wire attached to a harness will now be supervised by at least two stagehands. The first stagehand will make the attachment; the second stagehand will verify that the connection has been made and will also alert the stage manager that it is safe to proceed. The actor involved in the maneuver will also perform a self check and has the right to say if he or she still feels unprepared to perform this stunt; in fact, the spokesperson said, actors are encouraged to speak up if they do not feel safe.
    .
    The Department of Labor spokesperson said that most of the maneuvers did not have this redundancy in place prior to the Dec. 20 incident.
    .
    The spokesperson also said that all four injuries were failures of the safety procedures that were in place. This new protocol, the spokesperson said, should resolve these issues.”

    1. So basically the labor dept is reiterating exactly what I said three days ago, back when people were expressing outrage over the notion that the guy doing the stunt should be doing the final check, and that he is the one who says go or no go.
      .
      So I was right.
      .
      PAD

      1. .
        I love these lines from the article.
        .
        “The actor involved in the maneuver will also perform a self check and has the right to say if he or she still feels unprepared to perform this stunt; in fact, the spokesperson said, actors are encouraged to speak up if they do not feel safe.”
        .
        Translation: They “dared to suggest that it was up to the stunt man [or other performer] – who is wearing a full mask mind you – to be the final check on his equipment. That is just wrong and smacks of buck passing already.”
        .
        I guess that’s only a bad thing when the rep of the tech company says it.

      2. Yes, they are leaving it to the actor to do the *final* check, but now there is also a second stagehand checking, as well. The kind of redundancy that I was arguing should have been in the first place.
        .
        I could be wrong, but days ago weren’t you also arguing against the idea that this show was unusually dangerous, but rather this is just what happens in the “inherently risky” profession? I think the labor department disagreed with you on that one.

      3. You know what? Reeve Carney has stated he feels safe in his job, which is what you said actors should be able. Patrick Page stated that accidents happen which is what I said. That should be enough it certainly is for me. For now, I am done with this.

  25. Putting my name in quotes – why? Because you think I’m not a real person? My name is Peter Rios. I co-host a podcast called Comic Geek Speak that you’ve been a guest on to talk up Fallen Angel from IDW. Do I need to post my credentials for you to take me seriously?
    .
    You wrote: “Apparently you speak for the whole of the acting profession”. Really? I’m speaking for the whole of the acting profession? I guess I have to bring this up again:
    .
    You wrote: ““The reason actors are filled with so many superstitions and so many ways to try and ward off bad luck is because they’re always worried something will go wrong.””
    .
    Now who’s trying to speak for the whole of the acting profession. Are are you “basing that assertion on–wait for it–yourself”.
    .
    I can go round and round on this just as well as you can. I only want people to understand that – unlike what Mr. David is saying – the actors are limited by their responsibilities. You want to move a chair from onstage to off? A union person has to do it or the theatre could be fined. You want to fiddle with your mic pack? You go to the sound guy. An actor is not the final word on equipment. And it is not “human error” when a rope snaps as was the case in this latest incident. Check out the video footage. It’s all there to be seen.

    1. PAD is suspicious that you might be me. As we all know, everyone the thrust of whose argument is “Yeah, but what you said was arrogant, stupid and ill-informed, and now you’re lying about it” is me. I would vigorously disagree, but he would just accuse us of being solipsistic in public.

  26. Hit submit before I was done.
    .
    You said: “You are presenting a rather pathetic description of your profession”.
    .
    And you are presenting one that is your opinion and not fact. One that doesn’t know current procedures or the climate. No matter how you are trying to spin my words, just as you would want no one to tell you how to do your job, please stop telling your readers how we actors are supposed to do ours. Community theatre is not professional theatre.

    1. I put your name in quotes because sadly we have a history here of people showing up and thinking it is cute to sign my name or a variation thereof while taking potshots at me. If your name had been anything other than mine, no quotes.
      .
      And yes,I am a professional actor. I have acted and been paided for it. That’s all that is required. I am not a union member and I have never tried to make it my vocation. But I have acted professionally, hired actors, and been around them all my life. And it has been my experience that actors certainly hope for the best but allow for the possibility of the worst.
      .
      You apparently believe otherwise. Fine. Whatever. The bottom line is neither you nor I are in the show. So as long as the cast and crew want to keep it going, it is presumptuous for anyone else to gain say them. And if you are going to contend that they are unwilling to cross the producers, we are back to the notion that actors are afraid and weak. I do not accept that. I would like to think you don’t either.
      .
      PAD

  27. .
    You know what? I really don’t get some of the POVs being tossed around here.
    .
    This show, good, bad or somewhere in between, if accurately described in a number of places ain’t exactly the standard fair insofar as the number of stunts and wire work or in the complexity of these things. This isn’t Peter Pan zipping across the stage and swinging a sword at Hook as he goes by or a character landing next to another as he attacks him. What I’ve seen described is some seriously complicated wire stunts that involves complicated midair fight choreography and spans the entire theater.
    .
    Just based on the early descriptions of what was going on I was thinking that you were going to be dealing with a higher level of mishaps than usual and maybe a slightly higher rate of injuries (hopefully minor) during the show’s run. And I’ve gotta believe that if it’s anything like what I’ve seen described then the actors have to know that this one is going to be a doozy to pull off and that there’s a slightly greater than average chance of getting dinged up in this production.
    .
    And apparently they’re the ones all for going ahead and doing it.
    .
    I’ve known or met a lot of people, some in the entertainment field but many more not, who did things that they were passionate about where they knew that higher than normal risk was involved and knew that there was a chance of getting hurt but did it anyhow because (1) they were really behind whatever they were doing and (2) they felt that they could learn to do and train to do whatever it was that needed to be done well enough to not get hurt. Sometimes they were right and sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they got hurt and came back later to do it all over again and didn’t get hurt because they learned how far they could push their personal limits before what they were doing went from “safe but risky” to “unsafe.”
    .
    as of yet I’ve not seen the actual actors involved saying that this production is just too unsafe to go forward with. As of yet I’ve not seen the actors and stuntmen involved in this say that there’s no way to do this without a serious injury every performance. What I have seen is stories of an extremely complicated show with some pretty wild stunts and wire work having had a handful of accidents while everyone is figure out where their personal limits are. And even then some of the accidents being counted are not really stunt or performance related.
    .
    The one incident keeps getting referenced where a performer got hit by a rope while waiting backstage. It wasn’t an injury from doing a complicated stunt or not twisting right while doing the wire work and I’m not sure you can lump that one in to the “This Play is Too Dangerous” column with any level of honesty.
    .
    Look at it from this perspective. I’m on two tactical units with my department and I help with training on another. I do lots of really crazy stuff when training and I do a lot of stuff in training that my wife doesn’t even want to know about when I come home from some training days just for her own piece of mind. And I’m always one of the first guys to volunteer to be the “bad guy” when someone brings a new toy to training days where we’re training with several other agencies and the owner of the new toy wants to show everyone else how it works. Basically I’m known as one of the crazier people when it comes to training.
    .
    The middle of this year I tore my abdomen muscles while in training. Got a pretty bad rip right through the thing from just about where the abs start touching the muscles and whatnot coming up from your legs all the way up to just past my belly button. And I didn’t do it while fighting with someone on the ground or getting hit with a new toy or attacking the line in riot formation or even fighting to maintain formation against roll players pretending to be a rampaging mob.
    .
    I got hurt being picked up off of the ground. I was supposed to be “down” in the scenario and I was being moved away from danger. I was stomach down when four guys went to pick me up and move me. One guy tripped up before I was even completely up of the ground and planted his boot in my groin. This caused me to jerk in pain just as the other guys were lifting. The combined motions just caused a weird twist and *pop* I had a freak injury to my abs.
    .
    I didn’t get hurt doing anything dangerous. I didn’t get hurt doing anything wild. It was the training equivalent of someone bending over to grab their cup of coffee off of a low table and throwing their back out. I was injured while training, but the injury itself couldn’t really be counted as a mark against the safety (or lack thereof) of the training or of my love of doing the crazy stuff. Anybody that might want to scale back or shut down the more physical or risky stuff in our training could add my injury into a list of training related injuries purely to up their numbers, but they would be more than a little dishonest for doing it.
    .
    The rope hitting the one person backstage and one thing I read about that wasn’t stunt related? Kinda the same. Even comparing this to other plays seems a bit off to me as well since the complexity level is amped up so much here. Unfortunately I think there’s going to be some bad bumps and bruises while this thing is ironed out, but the fact is that right now the people doing it, actors included, seem to be fine with moving forward and seem to be fine with doing the stunts. Apparently they’re of the mind that it’s doable and that they can learn the routines and master them well enough to get to the point where there aren’t new injuries every other week.
    .
    And frankly that’s their call. When/if they say that the stunts they’re being asked to do are too complicated and too dangerous and that they cannot be down with any guarantee of finding that zone where the stunts and the safety can find a happy meeting place and that they’re being forced against their will to do this; then we can get all upset on their behalf. But right now all I see is people trying to do something they really feel passionate about and other people crying on their behalf about how badly they’re being mistreated here.
    .
    I don’t want someone going to my superiors and telling them that I’m being mistreated and abused by training and something must be done about it when the truth is that I like the training days we get. They’re fun. We take them seriously and we learn a hëll of a lot, but they’re also a hëll of a lot of fun. I don’t think these performers would really want someone else advocating stopping them from doing something they want to do and feel passionately about anymore than I would. If they come out and say that things are out of control and need to be reigned in then by all means support them. But until then you’re just talking out of your backside when you’re talking about what must be done for “their own good” and for “what they want.”
    .
    Or, option “C” comes to mind… You wanted in the production, couldn’t cut it and now this is your shot at undercutting the show and getting even for being turned down. Seen that a lot with my job as well.

    1. After reading the review (which I thought was very well-written), I decided to scroll down to skim the responses to see if the general population was as impressed as I was. After reading a handful, I spotted this extremely long entry and the first thing I thought was “Who the heck has time to write a diatribe like this in response to something someone else wrote?!?”. I immediately began reading it and thought that IT TOO was so eloquent and well-thought out that it deserved a note of praise. Thanks for taking the time to write it. You made some excellent points and hopefully there are some other readers who appreciate your message.

  28. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/broadway-actors-blast-julie-taymor-64903
    .
    This is the sort of thing I was expecting. At some point perception becomes reality–even if the amount of injuries is at a level to be expected with a production of this scope, the opportunity to be seen as the defender of the little guy against big greedy producers is too hard to resist. I’m not saying the producers don’t deserve blame. I’m saying it doesn’t matter if they do, they are going to get it anyway.
    .
    This production is likely hanging by a thread, no pun intended.

    1. .
      Yeah, but, again, the person yelling, screaming and cursing here isn’t an actor from the show. Right now I’d really love to see all the dirt sheets and entertainment news mags/papers that are running quotes like that go and ask the actors from the Spider-Man play, maybe even the injured ones, what they think about the play and what should be done with it.
      .
      Right now this looks like a room full of PC guys declaring that everyone should be offended on behalf of Group X over some matter while no one in the room is actually a member of Group X or has even asked a member of Group X what they think of the “offense” in question. No one wants to see their friends get hurt. No one wants to see fellow members of their profession get hurt. But at some point it would be nice to hear what the people who everyone is speaking out for actually want in the matter.
      .
      So far I haven’t seen that.

  29. .
    “‘Spider-Man’ Star Feels Safe if Show Goes on Tonight”
    http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/23/spider-man-star-reeve-carney-feels-safe-if-show-goes-on-tonigh/
    .
    “”I do feel safe,” said Reeve Carney, who plays Spider-Man, according to NBC’s “Today” show. “It was an unfortunate event the other night, but the safety precautions have gone up even more since then. I’ve always felt safe.
    .
    “They’ve got a lot of people making sure things are even safer than they were,” the actor said, according to the New York Daily News.”
    .
    .
    .
    Well, that’s one cast member heard from and it just happens to be a guy who is in the thick of it insofar as the stunts. He’s always felt safe with the show, he feels even safer now and he wants to keep doing the show.
    .
    I think I’ll give him and his word about what the actors may or may not be thinking and feeling about the show just a little more weight than those of people not actually involved with the show.

    1. .
      Oh, and here’s another choice quote.
      .
      .
      “Patrick Page, who plays the Green Goblin, said, according to NBC: “The injuries in our show are a terrible thing and no one wants to discount that at all, but injuries in a big show are something that happens.
      .
      .
      Gee, there’s a sentiment about the craft that sounds kinda… familiar.

    2. An actor in the thick of the show, sure. But also an actor who had the benefit of a stunt double, specifically Tierney, to do his most dangerous stunts for him. Tierney who got injured Monday night quite literally taking a fall for Carney. So you will excuse me if I don’t find Carney, or Page, who you quote next, who Tierney and others also doubled for in stunts, as the most compelling quotes to be had. In fact, to me personally, it seems a particularly poorly chosen statement, considering the fact that someone else, admittedly someone better trained, is the one that exposes themself to the most dangerous moments IN HIS PLACE.
      .
      I am not saying that they don’t know what they are talking about, but there are certainly some other people, the non-star, higher-risk taking members of the company, who I would be more interested to hear from.
      .
      Again, though, hopefully with the new safety measures added, this production will normalize as a safer shop, and they can all just get back to doing their work. And hopefully then even the people that actually take the jumps will have the privilege of feeling as safe and confident as Carney has.

      1. .
        Well, if we’re talking stuntmen then they’ll likely be chomping at the bit to get healed up and have a go at it again. We are talking about a profession full of people who have been known to break their backs halfway through a stunt and still finish the scene out, wipe out an out of control car and come back to do it again the next day, talk cheerily about the stunt that knocked them out and other such insane things.
        .
        I’ve seen a lot of interviews and behind the scenes footage with stuntmen. I’ve even met a few. Been a big fan of their craft for years before it was widely popular to be as much of a fan of them as it is in some quarters. And, well… a lot of them just don’t seem to have their heads screwed on straight.

  30. Jerry – read the quote again: “injuries in a BIG show are something that happens”. Not theatre as a whole. But a show of this magnitude. A show that the producers and creative team aren’t fully capable of mounting. Especially considering it’s the first show that has had to bring in Labor and OSHA to monitor. THIS show. This one show. That’s my point.
    .
    To your other post: “You wanted in the production, couldn’t cut it and now this is your shot at undercutting the show…”. Wow. That’s about the weirdest rebuttal yet. A tactic used to undermine one’s integrity in a discussion. Instead of furthering the discussion, why not just discredit the poster. A move worthy of a politician. 🙂
    .
    Trust that every thing backstage is stunt related. Where do you think the operators stand to enact the stunts? Out of sight of the audience. Or: backstage.
    .
    PAD said: “And if you are going to contend that they are unwilling to cross the producers, we are back to the notion that actors are afraid and weak. I do not accept that. I would like to think you don’t either.” You’re taking it to the extreme – for debate purposes for sure – but you and I both know it’s not that black and white. Name me any job where “the masses revolt”. It doesn’t happen. Just as no actor in the production will step forward publicly to tell the truth about what they felt.
    .
    I don’t think actors are afraid and weak. I also don’t think they are a cowardly and suspicious lot. Apparently you do by this quote “And it has been my experience that actors certainly hope for the best but allow for the possibility of the worst”. I certainly wouldn’t want them in my cast.

    1. .
      “Not theatre as a whole. But a show of this magnitude. A show that the producers and creative team aren’t fully capable of mounting. “
      .
      No, he’s talking about theater; big shows put on as theatre productions.
      .
      Wicked – Early in its run you had an injured neck, a broken foot and a fall that resulted in broken ribs.
      .
      Fela!- They had to cancel a performance because they quickly built up a list of injuries to multiple performers and the understudy wasn’t ready to step up to the plate. One wrist injury, a trip to the ER for an eye injury and back injuries were a result of the intense choreography.
      .
      The Lord of the Rings – The stage show had lots of injuries. Many of them from the fight choreography and stunts.
      .
      Starlight Express – Look up how many injuries that thing racked up sometime.
      .
      I also remember seeing news stories a few years back where a run of injuries was plaguing a production of Fiddler on the Roof. Had something to do with the dream sequence if memory serves.
      .
      Jerome Robbins’ Broadway had quite a few injuries basically due to the dancers being overworked. A Chorus Line, Chicago and Fame were much the same. Cats and Miss Saigon actually made news some years ago over how many physical therapists had to be hired and on hand to treat the problems the performers were having.
      .
      As a matter of fact, dancers in the theater tend to acquire so many injuries that there have been numerous published studies about it. And it’s not merely accidents that down the dancers; often it’s just doing the job. They dance complicated routines on stages with multiple level platforms while wearing heels ranging from flat to six or more inches. They dance in over-sized and heavy costumes that are sometimes awkwardly designed and don’t evenly distribute the costume’s weight. So, yeah, just doing your job accident free has historically caused injuries in theater and on Broadway for a lot of performers.
      .
      And things like this are a little more common on big shows with a lot of heavy choreography or a lot of tech stuff. It’s not like it’s a secret either.
      .
      Say, speaking of dancers… Just when are you going to also start demanding an end to all that dancing in the theatre? Or are all of those dancers getting hurt just fine and dandy with you?

  31. Jerry said: “The rope hitting the one person backstage … but the fact is that right now the people doing it, actors included, seem to be fine with moving forward and seem to be fine with doing the stunts.” – The actress who got a concussion from the rope? Hasn’t been back in the show since. What does that tell you?

    1. .
      “Hasn’t been back in the show since. What does that tell you?”
      .
      She’s still hurt?
      .
      One of the county guys I know took what seemed like a fairly mild hit to the head a year or so ago during training. He ended up with a bad concussion. He caught the blow just the wrong way on the back of the head where the skull meets the spine. Took him over two and a half months to return to full duty. During that time he would get dizzy if he moved too much (“too much” obviously being worse at the start of that period) and if he got too dizzy he would vomit.
      .
      Concussions can be tricky things.
      .
      However, if I could be wrong. Thing is, what you’re implying could also be wrong and based on her reported injury is likely closer to being wrong than my guess. But feel free to post at least one quote from her or anybody else who were/are a part of the production saying that’s it’s too dangerous and that they won’t get near the thing again.
      .
      I won’t hold my breath.

    2. It tells me you don’t know what the hëll you are talking about. She returned December 16th. We saw her on the 18th and she was one of the best things about the show.
      .
      Maybe you should go see her in the show. You might then understand why the cast is so determined to keep it going.
      .
      PAD

      1. .
        I missed that one as well. It says she returned to the production on December 15th, but it’s the other things in the article that add some things to the discussion about what she may or may not feel about going on with the show.
        .
        Natalie Mendoza Returns to Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark
        http://www.playbill.com/news/article/145895-Natalie-Mendoza-Returns-to-Spider-Man-Turn-Off-the-Dark
        .
        “… she was hit on the head by a rope that was holding a piece of the production’s equipment. Against doctor’s advice, she performed Dec. 1 but was unable to do so at the Dec. 2 performance at the Foxwoods Theatre. She had been out of the show since that performance.”
        .
        So she was hurt and being advised not to perform by a doctor and still wanted to get back to working on the show. What does that tell you?

  32. This is the dumbest argument.
    .
    I think both sides have said some things that were perhaps a little stronger than they meant. PAD, I don’t believe you have a callous, “hey, accidents happen, it’s no big deal,” attitude, but a few of the things you said could be read that way. You’ve clarified somewhat since then and I think your position is clear now. You other guys, no, I don’t believe you’re out to shut down good shows, but some of you might have jumped the gun on how much we know about the how dangerous the working conditions really are. This seems like an unusual string of accidents to me, too, but none of us really have the information to make a full judgement.
    .
    I think everyone here can acknowledge that there have been an unusual amount of accidents. I think everyone here can acknowledge that nobody wants accidents and the crew has taken more precautions (with oversight from various outside groups) to make it safer than it was before.
    .
    Whenever an argument becomes 99% about people trying to justify the context of their earlier arguments, the original point has been lost. Let’s just all agree that the safety of the actors is extremely important and hope that the crew is right about the new safety features being sufficient.

  33. “You know what? Reeve Carney has stated he feels safe in his job, which is what you said actors should be able. Patrick Page stated that accidents happen which is what I said. That should be enough it certainly is for me. For now, I am done with this.”
    .
    Well, now that additional (I would argue remedial) safety measures have been added, I do hope the cast feels safe enough to get on with the show.
    .
    And before anyone adds it for me, I will acknowledge that Carney said “I’ve always felt safe.” Of course, there was another performer who did the most dangerous stunts for Carney as his double. Christopher Tierney, who was undergoing back surgery today, while Carney goes on in the show, still feeling safe. Always having felt safe, it seems. I would be much more compelled by how safe Tierney thinks the show is, and always was.
    .
    One last bit of reporting to share, of interest to the discussion and to the assertion that the final no or no go, and therefore the final purview of whether the jump was safe, was something that we could have expected of Tierney Monday night. This is an excerpt from the Daily News (hey, at least it isn’t the Post):
    .
    “Federal and state investigators swooped down on the Foxwoods Theatre the next day where they discovered that somebody had failed to correctly attach Tierney’s safety harness.
    .
    Asked who was to blame, a source close to the probe said, ‘Not the actor.'”

  34. “Well, if we’re talking stuntmen then they’ll likely be chomping at the bit to get healed up and have a go at it again. We are talking about a profession full of people who have been known to break their backs halfway through a stunt and still finish the scene out, wipe out an out of control car and come back to do it again the next day, talk cheerily about the stunt that knocked them out and other such insane things.
    .
    I’ve seen a lot of interviews and behind the scenes footage with stuntmen. I’ve even met a few. Been a big fan of their craft for years before it was widely popular to be as much of a fan of them as it is in some quarters. And, well… a lot of them just don’t seem to have their heads screwed on straight.”

    Sure, and if Tierney were a career stuntman, he might be that type. (Although, in fairness, the stunt people and fight directors I’ve known and worked with, in theater rather than film/TV, tend to be meticulous professionals who keep safety in mind. Especially as they and their people don’t have to crash a car once, but need to plan and execute that crash 8 shows a week.)
    .
    Of course, while Tierney is an ensemble member/aerialist that doubles for the leads in a lot of the stunts and wire work, his credits suggest that a person with more of a dance background was hired rather than the kind of career stuntman you may be describing. (To be fair, though, I am only speculating based on what he chose to mention). Maybe it would have been a more prudent plan to staff this show with career stunt performers, or circus performers, than staffing it like a regular musical or dance show? This is his program bio, via Playbill.com:
    .
    “CHRISTOPHER W. TIERNEY Dance companies: Hubbard Street, Ballet Jazz du Montreal, Houston Ballet. Film: featured actor and dancer in Across the Universe. Stage: Dirty Dancing (Toronto), Moving Out (national tour). All his love and gratitude to his family.”
    .
    I can’t speak to how his head is screwed-on, but whether any performer doing a stunt has a danger-loving daredevil personality or not, I think the plan to have the sort of redundancies they NOW have in place is the better way to go. And that is why the people with the personality of the stuntmen you are describing, are not the kinds of people I would want setting safe conditions in the first place.

    1. .
      “I can’t speak to how his head is screwed-on, but whether any performer doing a stunt has a danger-loving daredevil personality or not,”
      .
      Most stuntmen do tend to be meticulous professionals who keep safety in mind and they certainly don’t plan the stunt with trying to get hurt in mind. They just happen to also not have their heads screwed on too straight.

      1. When some stupid-ášš show comes that close to killing a performer, that does absolutely nothing to make Peter David’s crowing and posturing attractive. I am more inclined to listen to people who make a living as musical theater performers than I am poseurs who occasionally deign to grace dinner theater with their brilliance when the mechanics of surviving misguided monstrosities of spectacle and greed.

    1. .
      Still doesn’t say much about her feelings on the safety of the show. Doesn’t say anything about that actually. If anything, this part of the writeup –
      .
      “On Sunday, Ms. Mendoza wrote on her Facebook page that she was grateful to be down to two nausea tablets and four painkillers per day to cope with her concussion. “Thank goodness I had such a brilliant neurologist who made sure I recovered properly,” she wrote. “Nice to be almost back to normal … almost anyway haha! Thanking God for peace, real friends, love and health and healing.”
      .
      – looks like what I said above in response to your incorrect assertion that she had not returned to the show at all. She’s still getting over the concussion and thus she’s still in pain and dealing with the nausea associated with concussions. This may mean nothing more than she’s not able to perform in the show reliably or without making herself ill by the end of a performance.

      1. This article has too many unnamed sources for my taste but if the following is true–She was seen by two doctors; one of them, a specialist hired by the production, advised her to take time off to recover, the actress’s spokesman said early this month. But Ms. Mendoza insisted that she be allowed to go on at the next performance, three days later, and the producers and director, who knew about the concussion, allowed her to. Mr. Cohl spoke with the specialist before the performance, and a spokesman for the production said the specialist said it would not be a major problem for Ms. Mendoza to perform as long as she took it easy. they were very foolish to let her go back so soon. Cuncussions are more serious than people think and I can see no feasible way she can play Arachne and “take it easy” (if what people tell me about the production is accurate). had they erred on the side of caution this might have had a happier ending.
        .
        I didn’t realize she was the actress who played Juno in The DESCENT. Sorry I won’t get a chance to see her on the stage.

      2. Whatever the reason, it’s between her and the producers if and until she decides she wants to make a public statement.
        .
        She was really great in the show. It’s a shame.
        .
        PAD

  35. After I read this, I Googled “spider-man turn off the dark hoodie” to check out the aforementioned hoodie. This article came up as the 1st search result. Congrats…I think.

    1. When a long-delayed and notorious pre-production becomes news, it is treated as news. In this case, the emperor is loudly blaming the child for the condition of his clothes, but he is still naked.

  36. .
    And another injured star is heard from at last…
    .
    “NEW YORK — The actor badly hurt when he tumbled from the stage at the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” returned to the theater for the first time since his accident, going backstage to wish the castmembers good luck and then watching Friday’s performance from the safety of the orchestra seats.
    .
    “It’s what I’ve been waiting for for the past two weeks — to see my friends and finally watch the show,” Christopher Tierney told The Associated Press after the performance. Wearing a pea coat, a scarf and a back brace decorated with Spider-Man stickers, he said it was “awesome” to be back.”
    .
    http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40974940/ns/today-entertainment/?gt1=43001

    1. .
      Tierney has blamed his injuries on a freak accident and doesn’t accuse the producers or the creative team of carelessness. The team is led by Tony Award-winning director and book co-writer Julie Taymor of “Lion King” fame.”

      1. We went to see the matinee performance of “A Little Night Music” today.
        .
        At the end of intermission, the audience was informed that one of the female lead roles was going to be performed by the understudy. Also Elaine Stritch totally went up on her lines in the last five minutes of Act 2, having literally no idea what to say, and was coaxed through the last few lines by one of her costars.
        .
        In all my years of theater going, I’ve never been to a show where a substitution was made halfway through and one of the leads just kind of melted down on stage.
        .
        I venture to say this is the only place you’re going to read about it. If it happened in “Spider-Man,” it would be on page 2 of tomorrow’s Post.
        .
        PAD

      2. If one of the actors from Tron gets into some newsworthy trouble, it will make more headlines than if someone The King’s Speech gets into the same trouble.
        .
        It’s not unusual or unreasonable that the more well known play with the much higher monetary risk gets more attention. It would be strange if it didn’t.

  37. PAD,
    On a lighter note, the editor at a local Scranton paper absolutely blistered this show. Of course, he didn’t see it or know anyone who actually has and he was already calling the show a flop.
    .
    He challenged me to rebut him and i used a lot of the facts gleaned from here to do so. Fingers crossed that it sees print.

    1. To say nothing of the fact that the show has been selling at capacity for weeks now and so can not, by any standard measure, be determined as a flop.
      .
      PAD

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