March 06, 2012 Arts » Performing Arts

Pin It
Submit to Reddit
Favorite

Perry on Broadway: Reviewing the hits and misses 

By
click to flip through (3) arts_performance1-1_02.webp
   

Page 4 of 5

The confusion and miscalculations of Julie Taymor, the original director and co-writer, along with the perils faced by all those falling actors during Spider-Man's accident-prone gestation, have thrown a merciful mask over the music and lyrics of Bono and The Edge. Utterly drab and dreadful! Worse, the title song has fatally tied Spidey to the mythical Arachne. Taymor apparently hatched the lame idea of having this creature presiding over Peter Parker's mutation into a superhero. In Greek mythology, Arachne was a mortal transformed into a spider by the jealous Athena, but in Taymor's mythology, the ace seamstress becomes a goddess presiding over Parker's entire heroic career.

So Arachne must sing "Turn Off the Dark" with Peter from the center of her awesome gleaming web, hovering in mid-air. Elaborately staged, the duet stops the show... dead in its tracks, jaw-droppingly purposeless, tedious, and irrelevant. Amid the cartoon muddle, Parker's formulaic relationship with Mary Jane Watson, the dreamgirl next door, gives us a desperately needed infusion of humanity.

Along with wife-to-be Mary Jane, hard-bitten newspaper editor J. Jonah Jamison, Peter's employer and staunch Spidey naysayer, has been salvaged from the original Marvel Comics. Otherwise, the Spidey universe is unbelievably botched by the book writers. The Green Goblin spins off six supervillains besides himself, including a buzzing Swarm and an incredibly clunky Lizard, but the writers don't give this armada of doom – or the Goblin, for that matter – a single crime to commit. So there are no victims or police in Spider-Man's over-swollen budget, just a crowd of scurrying, panicking cityfolk. Then our hero dispatches Goblin's minions with slightly more difficulty than he would have had warring against a cockroach on its back. So much for suspense.

We did have a fully costumed Spidey greet us in the lobby when we arrived, and again at intermission amid the intense concessions crush. If you treat a kid to this spectacle, consider those choice "landing zones" up at the lip of the balcony, a far better sightline for your favorite anklebiter.

Off-Broadway

Silence! The Musical (***1/2) – Blessed vulgarity! I don't think I've seen a lampoon this irreverent, filthy, or incorrigibly nasty since the early movies of Mel Brooks when he was exuberantly taking down Westerns, monster movies, and sci-fi pics. The target here is one of the great screen thrillers, Silence of the Lambs, and there's no mockery or crudity that Jon and Al Kaplan aren't willing to toss at Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lector, Clarice Starling, and serial killer Buffalo Bill. No holds barred – and one shocking hole bared.

The project apparently began as a screenplay, but under the direction of Christopher Gattelli, the show is unabashedly low-budget, with the meanest assaults fired at Jody Foster. Jenn Harris plunges into her impression of Foster with a lusty lateral lisp, transforming our heroine into FBI cadet Clareesh Shtarling and her caged adversary into "Mishter Lecter, shir." David Garrison doesn't have to work nearly as hard to simulate the eerie calm and drone of Anthony Hopkins' equally Oscar-worthy Lecter. No, it's Stephen Bienske who truly goes wild in designer David Kaley's outrageous costume. Brace yourself as the already demented killer gets one extra twist.

Ah, but there's a soft side to the Kaplan brothers' takedown when a chorus of dopey lambs guides us to the darker recesses of Clarice's psyche. Yet the apex of the Kaplans' lyricism – and Gattelli's raunchy choreography – arrives with Lecter's unforgettable love ballad, "If I Could Smell Her Cunt." The high-security prison melts away, and a Dream Clarice and a Dream Hannibal dance onto the stage with all the deathless ardor of an Agnes de Mille fantasia set to a Rodgers & Hammerstein score. The Kaplans' songbook is rife with profanity, including Bienske's rampaging "Put the Fuckin' Poodle in the Basket," but nothing tops Garrison's baritone pouring out Lecter's passionate yearning. Unless it's Harris's profanity-laced monologue when Clarice's superior refuses to let her join a SWAT team about to arrest Buffalo Bill.

With songs and language like this, it's no wonder that the Kaplans' screenplay never made it to your local Cineplex before Hunter Bell adapted it for the stage. If you're averse to constant deluges of profanity, Silence! will not be an unmitigated joy, and I came out wishing that my VHS copy of the original film hadn't gathered quite so much dust over the years. A refresher viewing will help you to appreciate all the detailed allusions of the musical – beginning with those wholesome spurts of fresh semen.

Full text

1 2 3 4 5

More Performing Arts »

Tags: , , , , ,

Speaking of...

Pin It
Submit to Reddit
Favorite

Latest in Performing Arts

Calendar

More »

Search Events

all events
concerts
restaurants
movie times

Most Popular
Most Shared
Most Commented

© 2019 Womack Digital, LLC
Powered by Foundation