Do or do not; there is no try.

On Broadway, design teams tend to test out plays that are experimental, or even simply strange. This month however, the team behind U2 and The Lion King are presenting a $65M musical spectacle, that was better left in the trash.


Spider Man opens in early January, where it will most likely gather highly negative reviews; the worst of the season, I suspect.


What Bono and The Edge (seriously, get real names) and Julie Taymor, Tony winning designer of The Lion King are presenting, is in a word....ridiculous.


The show runs close to three hours and contains one tuneless emo song after another. The actors run back and forth, changing into million dollar costumes and some even fly back and forth attached to million dollar wiring.


To say this is all style and no substance, would be a massive dis-service. The whole thing is crap.


Ok. Ok. The flying is kind of cool. Who doesn't want to see Spidey fight The Green Goblin, high above, often making their way into the Mezzanine. The sets are also quite beautiful. Including one scene set from the sky's point of view, in a downward/street facing/between buildings fight.


That's it though. I swear. The lyrics are beyond absurd. At the same time, they are all also cookie cutter songs, which can be taken in and out of any show. Generic at best.


The "story" is as follows:


Peter Parker, a geeky teen, is attacked by a special spider, which gives him super powers.
Yea yea we all know this one.
Let's skip to the silly.


So, The Goblin is defeated early on, in Act One. In Act Two, however a new "Spider Woman" villain named Arachne, becomes enraged when Peter denys his identity and decides to cause a power outage in NYC.


She enlists the help of six other villains (some real, some made up), whom help to cause havoc in the city. There is also a song about shoes. I'm not kidding.


All the while, there is a "Geek Chorus" telling us the tale, from their own imaginations.


The second act is completely devoid of any interesting flight, and it ends very suddenly. So suddenly, in fact, I suspect the show simply has no ending, and they chose to only drop the curtain.


Lots of wasted talent here. Jennifer Damiano, as Mary Jane gets to show off her beautiful voice for about 10 minutes in some of the most bizarre songs ever performed. Reeve Carney, as Spidey can't act for shit and has a nice enough voice. I suspect, however that he will not last long. Neither will the some 12 stuntmen that play Spidey in the air. This show is simply two exhausting to perform eight shows a week.


They have since announced they are canceling more previews to fix the show's many many problems.
Kudos!


I plan to return with popcorn in hand, after opening and await the closing notice with the rest of them.

Put a Little Love in Your Heart

On the Subway, love exists over the sound of changing tracks and beat boxers. This time of year, people tend to become just a little bit nicer to their fellow man. Even if it comes from the strangest of places sometimes.


We've all seen them. "Don't Blink!", they shout as they flip around the poles with loud music blaring. Convinced that we are going to get hit in the face, we turn our heads away in disgust and annoyance.


Or the Latino family wearing sombreros that board and begin playing accordions and guitars accompanying soulful Spanish lyrics.


So why on the subway, the other day, did I happen to see a little old lady dancing to one of our Beat Boxing fellow men? She liked it. So, sue her!


This woman must had been pushing 85, and yet she stood up and began to groove to the music. Our artist had to sustain his laughter, while barely containing the smile on his face. This man reached out to someone. She tipped him $10 on his way out and gave him a hug.


Love exists in a more traditional way of course. We start to notice couples, and even friends, holding hands and shopping bags. Shopping is like war and these people just survived it together.


Never mind "Loving yourself" On the subway, we think about ourselves enough.


Consider the story of the man above.
The letter he scribbled frantically on the A train was a genuine apology for hurting someone he loved. The man sat in silence prior to his prose. I turned around and then turned back to see him writing it. Inspiration had struck and our Romeo had started his letter to Juliet.


I still wonder what became of this man and his love.


I posted this photo for three reasons:


1) It looks cool.


2) It was cool to watch.


3) Have you ever seen such a prominent example of the impulse of love?


Can we not picture this guy walking back and forth in his apartment and wondering "How the hell can I fix this?"


I hope Romeo's letter went over well and they are back to riding the rails together, hands held and dropping quarters into magician's buckets.