The Dark Is Kinda Being Turned Off This Weekend

?Despite the tabloid-style tease of the headline, the national nightmare that is Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is not ending. Not yet anyways. Instead, the four performances held this weekend will mark the last time Julie Taymor’s original vision for the musical will be mounted in front of a live audience. So if you want to go see insane musical numbers about footwear, you need to get to the Big Apple pretty fucking pronto. From The New York Times:

Gone, when the show resumes performances on May 12 after a three-week
overhaul, will be the Geek Chorus of narrators who were stand-ins for
the show’s creators: Bono and the Edge of U2, the playwright Glen Berger, and Ms. Taymor, whom the producers ousted as director last month over creative conflicts.

Gone will be Ms. Taymor’s vision of the spider villainess Arachne, now a
central role inspired by Greek mythology, but one that will be reduced
to a guardian angel character during the hiatus, according to members of
the cast and the production.

Gone, too, will be some of Ms. Taymor’s head-spinning numbers like
“Deeply Furious,” where Arachne and her spider ladies-in-waiting became
all-powerful by slipping shoes onto their many legs. Gone will be the
Act I death of another villain, the Green Goblin, who will become an
even bigger character when performances resume — reflecting the wishes
of focus groups that “Spider-Man” producers convened this winter. And
gone will be the Act II climax, a confrontation between Arachne and
Peter Parker.

For some members of the “Spider-Man” cast and crew, the weeks since Ms.
Taymor’s firing on March 9 have been a painful limbo — eight
performances a week of a show marked for extinction. Like so much else
about “Spider-Man,” there is no historical precedent for a Broadway show
that runs for months without opening and then closes temporarily to
excise much of the original director’s concept.

See people? History is being made here! I’ll admit, I’m upset to see all the shithouse bonkers stuff being stripped from the show. Whatever the new Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark turns out to be, there’s no way it will be nearly as fascinating. (Or as newsworthy, so if you are tired of hearing about this production rest assured that your pain will soon be over). Meanwhile, did all the behind-the scenes turmoil push Spidey to attempt to rob an Australian news agency with a machete? Oh Julie Taymor, what have you wrought? Thanks to Jade for the tip. (Image via Cool-O-Rama)