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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for June 15, 2011

TT: Three cheers for the bad guy

June 15, 2011 by ldemanski

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has finally opened, and my review is in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
spider-man-005.jpgIf beauty were really only skin deep, then “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” would be the perfect musical. Every cent of the $70 million budget is visible. George Tsypin’s sets, Kyle Cooper’s digital projections and Eiko Ishioka’s costumes have been melded into an exquisitely exact stage equivalent of the sharp-angled, high-contrast drawing style of the Marvel comic books in which Peter Parker and his web-spinning alter ego first came to fictional life. The show’s sheer visual dynamism is staggering–but except for one great performance, it has little else to offer. It’s the best-looking mediocre musical ever to open on Broadway….
Poetry, not special effects, is the engine that drives lyric theater, and “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” is as unpoetic as you can get. Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa’s book is flabby and witless. The score, by U2’s Bono and The Edge, sounds like a double album of B-sides (“Don’t think about tomorrow/We’ve only got today”). Not only are the songs forgettable, but they never succeed in generating any dramatic momentum–all they do is get louder. As for Mr. Carney and Ms. Damiano, they’re pretty, bland and devoid of charisma….
Outside of the décor, what does “Spider-Man” have going for it? The bad guy. Patrick Page is a classical actor of high distinction whom New York playgoers will remember as the mercurial Henry VIII of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s marvelous 2008 revival of “A Man for All Seasons.” Mr. Page has a voice like a cathedral organ and enough charisma to blast Mr. Carney off the stage and into the next county, and you can tell that he’s having a grand old time playing a super-villain….
* * *
Read the whole thing here.

TT: Snapshot

June 15, 2011 by ldemanski

Booker T. and the MGs play “Time Is Tight”:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

TT: Almanac

June 15, 2011 by ldemanski

“Perhaps, after all, there is something in the theory that only the ultra-busy can find time for everything.”
James Agate, Ego 4

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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