U2′s Bono and The Edge star alongside the cast of the play in this new music video for “Rise Above 1″ a big number from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which is still playing on Broadway. Naturally I had to post it because to me, the idea of U2 writing the music for a play based on Spider-Man is a better satire of theater than even Waiting for Guffman could’ve been, and somehow it’s all real. Yet again, parody can’t touch reality for absurdity.

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Stage actor Harry Lennix has taken to Huffington Post to write a lengthy screed/defense of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark director Julie Taymor, who was fired from the production a week before the scheduled opening. He decries her “unmerited and unprecedented persecution,” as if she was Jesus, or Hitler, and not a chick who directs musicals.

In my opinion, the producers of Spider-Man have found a convenient whipping girl to bear the brunt of any woes related to the production. They seem to have absolved themselves from accountability for the show’s production while reaping the benefit of the publicity surrounding the absurd decision to jettison the creative visionary behind it. In their minds, the fault couldn’t possibly lie with an untested Broadway producer, or the two all but absent rock star composers whose notoriety is derived from a completely different medium.

The “convenient whipping girl” part might be true, but I might also argue that the root of the problem was the original idea for a $60 million musical about Spider-Man with music by U2. And calling her “the creative visionary behind it” isn’t a great way to absolve her from that. Also, are you really going to criticize someone “whose notoriety is derived from a completely different medium” in a piece about A SPIDER-MAN MUSICAL?

Would a male director receive the lashing Julie has received? If it were a male director with the reputation and accomplishments of Julie Taymor I cannot believe in good conscience that this would happen in this way. Julie’s career is an unqualified success. She is a singular pioneer who deserves to be given as much freedom and support to create as any man with her accomplishments would be given. I marvel at this double standard. We are witnessing a situation where a woman is unceremoniously and illogically dismissed, treated with senseless hostility from her male employers, and nobody speaks in advocacy of her — not even women’s groups. It boggles the mind. [HuffPo]

If there’s one rhetorical strategy that needs to be put to bed, it’s this type of asinine hypothetical.  Here’s how it works: you take someone who’s receiving unquestionably-justified criticism, be it Julie Taymor, Chris Brown, Charlie Sheen, etc., and instead of defending their actions, which you know would be preposterous, you simply turn it around and ask “BUT WOULD WE HOLD A WHITE/BLACK/FEMALE/GAY/STRAIGHT/MAN/WOMAN TO THIS SAME STANDARD?!” and fold your arms as if you’ve just made some profound statement.  The answer, by the way, is almost always “yes.”  There’s no conspiracy.  Yes, Bono deserves to be ripped on for this just as hard (if he hasn’t, it’s only because people get bored with ripping on Bono), and when he does, you won’t see me defending him just because we’re both handsome rock stars.

If you ever wondered what a U2 song about Spider-Man would sound like, wonder no longer, because Reeve Carney, star of the Spider-Man musical with music from U2 and the Edge (screw those other guys, they should be thankful they’re not homeless), went on Good Morning America this morning to sing “Boy Who Falls from the Sky.”  Oh, don’t worry, the lyrics are super deep, you guys.  This makes “Yellow” look like “Your Body is a Wonderland.”

You can change your mind
but you cannot change your heart.
It’s a compass and a map, and a key to the chart.
You can fly too high, and get too close to the sun
see how the boy falls from the sky

IN THE NAAAAAAAAAME OF WEBS!  FLYING HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH ON MY SPIDER WEBS……

At the very least, the drummer has a sweet combover.  Meanwhile, director Julie Taymor sat down for a chat and showed off the designs for some of the villains.  Here’s Green Goblin:

Looks a little light in the goblin shoes, amirite?  I mean, I think I know what he‘s gobblin, and it ain’t green, gnome sayin?  (*toilet flush*) (*slide whistle*) (*bike horn*) (*squirts German Shepard with seltzer*).   Anyway, I don’t really understand theater.  Is this good?  I know plays are like movies for poor people, and Broadway is for people who want to spend a lot of money to do something obsolete, so I guess this is… fitting?  I don’t know.  I’ve tried to weigh the merits of this, but it’s kind of like reviewing the steam engine.

[via ToplessRobot]

Take your jazz hands off that pistol, musical lover. It’s been a long, dark road, but it seems that the Spider-Man Broadway musical with music by U2 I told you about a while back (“Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”) will finally be getting its debut.  Rolling Stone quotes producer Michael Cohl, who says preview performances will start November 14th and opening night is scheduled for December 21st. That’s a picture of the actual set above (I added gay Spider-Man for… uh… scale).

In October ’08, the Post reported that the play would cost $40 million (which they were trying to bring down to $35m), and would have a weekly running cost of $1 million.  They estimated that it would have to run for 8,000 years in a Broadway theater just for it to break even (which would be three years shy of Cats‘ run).  More recent estimates put the cost even higher, at $50 million, though it doesn’t say whether that includes the weekly cost.  Luckily, they’ve got some big stars to headline the bill.  Hold on, I’m receiving an update…

Jennifer Damiano will fill the role of Mary Jane Watson, and Patrick Page will play both Norman Osborn and the villain Green Goblin. The actors join Reeve Carney, playing Peter Parker.  Because of the delays and the uncertain nature of the production, both actress Evan Rachel Wood, who was to star as Mary Jane, and Alan Cumming, in the Green Goblin role, quit. [RollingStone]

Director Julie Taymor originally wanted Jim Sturgess for Peter Parker, but apparently that didn’t work out either.  Which could have something to do with Jim Sturgess being an actor who gets offered real film roles and this being a Broadway musical about Spider-Man.  With U2 songs.

Bono and the Edge, who wrote both the lyrics and music for the show, remain firmly in place. Last year the Edge said that the music “touches on opera, it touches on rock & roll. There are some real character-driven songs as well, very unusual song types for us.”

By “character driven,” do you mean talk-singing numbers sung from the perspective of the Green Goblin?  Because that sounds great.  Good luck with that.

The New York Post today has more information of the ridiculously expensive Spider-Man musical for which U2 wrote the music (as if you needed to know more than that).

The phrase “Broadway musical” doesn’t seem grand enough to convey the size and scope of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” [Ed Note: ???] which is due to open in New York in January 2010.  Spider-Man, added director Julie Taymor, “is not going to sing and dance in tights.”

Hmm.  It’s a broadway show about a guy who wears tights. How the hell else could it possibly go?

A better description of her show, she suggested, is a “circus rock-’n'-roll drama.”  [Ahh, our bad] As Spider-Man, Peter clashes with a parade of Marvel villains — Green Goblin, Carnage, Electro, Rhino, Swarm and Lizard.  Berger and Taymor have invented a new baddie for the show — Swiss Miss, whose costume, designed by Oscar winner Eiko Ishioka (“Bram Stoker’s Dracula”), consists of rotating knives and swirling corkscrews.

I know this probably goes without saying, but the decision-making of the folks in charge here really isn’t inspiring much hope. Spider-Man has been around for 47 years now, and yet they decided they needed a new villain, which they promptly named after hot chocolate.  And anyway, if I were naming a Spider-Man villian after sweets (and let’s be clear, I’m not) I would’ve gone with… LORNA DOOM!