NYTimes.com: THE most expensive, debated and derided musical ever on Broadway — the $75 million “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — now has a dishy insider memoir. It chronicles the ugly slide of the once close creators, the director Julie Taymor and the composers Bono and the Edge, of U2, into a morass of betrayals, lawsuits, and petty slaps, like a producer’s yanking Ms. Taymor’s tickets for the show’s opening night.
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Well it sounds like they hired the wrong script writer. If it was someone writing the script for themselves it would make more sense, but since Marvel has the rights, Taymor should of pandered. It sounds like she had vision for the show that did not meet up with their expectations. Although some of the stuff in that article was just silly. Yanking her tickets before the show? The article is right in calling that petty. A lot of that article just served to demonstrate that the stereotype of people in drama being overly dramatic can be stupidly true. Bono is a musician and only sort of falls into that category, but for a philanthropist like him it all really does sound rather silly.
This sounds like it was doomed from the beginning. Parts of the story just sound like a young man who was brought into in the chance of a lifetime and then became bitter through a quite rough experience. I personally do not have interest in the book and the only reason I want to see the show is because of the amount of technical aspects within the show. So yet again just people being angry and making money off other peoples misfortune. There is for sure blame to go all the way around. The blame does of course sit higher on some seats then others but just sounds like a soap opera to me.
Reading this article my first reaction was to hope that I am never in a situation like this. Before I continue with this comment I want to say that I have seen the show twice (once in June 2011 and in August 2012). What kills me about the show, and is clearly shown in this article, is that because of the crappy collaboration of the production team the production as a whole was not able to reach its full potential. I think there are more than just communication issues in their collaboration. What it sounds like to me is that each of the writers (Taymour, Bono and the Edge, Berger) all had different ideas for what the show should be, and none of them wanted to compromise. What I think we learn from this is that collaboration is a very big part of the work we do, but we must be careful in how we go about conducting this collaboration.
While I have not seen the show, it sounds from the article like this group of people should have never come together to work on a project. Although individually talented, they clearly were not well suited for each other in a team environment and it ultimately sounds like they were very unprofessional in how they treated one another. The idea that the producers, Bono, and the Edge would encourage Berger to start writing a script kept secret from Julie Taymor was shocking to me. It seems so immature and disrespectful. If all members of the production team felt that Taymor was ill-fit for the project, this should have been handled with more honesty early on instead of working behind her back. Michael Cohl's last minute cancellation of her opening night tickets is also a shocking display of immature pettiness. I'm surprised that people who behave this way have managed to become successful in their careers.
I am amazed that the production team was still able to pull of what it did with this chaos going on. The pictures and work I have seen of the show are amazing but it seems that the storytelling side of the production suffered, which would seem to directly correlate to the dissension between the members. I also have a really hard time wrapping my head around how corrupt a production team's relationship must have been if the director was fired and a secret script was being written. As we all know, to create great theatre, the production team really needs to congeal and this obviously isn't possible under these conditions.
i have never read of such a horrible time while working with a production crew. It seems there was a lot of problems and many issues between members of the crew. This is definitely not a situation that one wants to be in while working on a show. I hope that I am never put in a position like this while doing a show. It seems that the crew should have talked more and should have had a better understanding of where they wanted to go with show and how they wanted to work together.
I really hope this is the harbinger of the end for the Spiderman saga. There are times when we should realize what a failure looks like and stop puitting more money and effort into it. The dissapointing part is that all of the notoriety for this musical is drapped with dread and danger from the stories it has brought forth. Such a negative image for anything should not be encouraged. There are some musicals that should never be.
I haven't seen the show but I heard all about the terrible reviews it got and the injuries to the cast. I had no idea how terrible the chemistry of the production team was until I read this article but now that I know, it doesn't really surprise me that the show turned out so poorly. Any time you don't have good communication between all the parts of the production, the show itself is going to suffer, which it very clearly did in this case. Although all the members are clearly very talented on their own, they just did not fit together as is occasionally the case. Egos get in the way and it just creates the perfect storm for failure. I am also very interested in actually reading the book when it come out.
I truly cannot believe that this production ever made it to opening. Hopefully the “tell-all” book will shed some light on the production, and maybe even function as a “how not to act” book for writers, directors, and producers everywhere.
In my personal opinion, I hate that Spiderman has actually become a real piece of theatre. In my professional opinion, I can’t believe that well-known theatre artists such as Taymor cared enough about such a ridiculous project that they fought over it for so long.
It seems like the constant drip of negative Spiderman news just keeps coming. I remember when I was first reading about the struggles they had with cast injuries and automation issues. Then it was all about being overbudget and lacking a coherent narrative. I really don't understand how this show has made it as far as it has with this many issues and in house bickering.
Although I suppose throwing more money at it can solve a fair amount of problems. Well if nothing else, at least the show is helping stimulate the economy by shoving more money in people's pockets...
This could be an interesting book to read. If mainly just to put together a comprehensive (hopefully) chronicle of this production. It could be a useful tool for future shows to reference. I really think that the biggest lesson that can be learned from Spiderman is the fact that if someone has a strong enough desire to create a show then that will happen.
After writing a book like that, I imagine that it's going to be quite hard for Berger to find another job. He totally ruined every strand of trust that his coworkers had with him. Now, it was probably a giver that Berger would find it slightly difficult to find work after being a "struggling artist" and Spider-Man probably did not add much to his resume, but this is simply crossing a professional line that shouldn't be crossed. I understand that sometimes you need to get your anger out, but honestly it shouldn't ever bring up someone else's "disses" and more importantly, it shouldn't be published as a book for everyone to buy. This article is a prime example of workers that people do not enjoy being around.
I'm surprised the producers thought there was any chance of a show succeeding when they seemed to be actively working against the director. I mean, writing a "Plan X" without telling the director about it is just very bad judgement, and pulling her tickets before opening night is childish and cruel. In an atmosphere like that, I doubt any show could succeed, no matter how good the director was, or how amazing the book and music were (and in this case, they weren't even good). This book might be useful to a lot of people, as a manual on exactly what not to do.
Considering the upswing of enormously popular action-packed comic book movies throughout the 2000s (Batman, Iron Man, two different Hulk movies, Tobey Maguiderman), "Turn Off The Dark" had excellent potential to be a crossover hit. I've never seen the show, but from what this article and other sources describe, it seemed that the show's downfall (among more obvious ones) was that it just didn't FEEL like spiderman. Berger, Taymor, and Bono tried to cash in on the superhero upswing, but they broke the first rule of playwriting; they didn't seem to do their research. Even the proposed scriptwriters (Tony Kushner, Tom Stoppard) are out of left field if you're trying to write a comic book adaptation. What would the show have been like with Joss Whedon on the script? Or Christopher Nolan? Still a trainwreck, probably; but perhaps a more authentic trainwreck.
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