OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE

While Theatre Unleashed’s cast and crew have a gloriously and unashamedly good time bringing The Spidey Project to the West Coast, it’s a shame that their source material isn’t the parody it promised to be in the press release. There are some very funny moments in this silly, harmlessly-entertaining one-hour musical, largely due to some goofy acting and David Chrzanowiski’s exuberant direction, but it neither parodies the over-bloated Broadway musical nor the Marvel Comics character. To quote writer Justin Moran, “It’s Peter Parker, in high school at Forest Hills when he gets bitten by the spider and all that good stuff.”

Moran, a New York improv actor whose only titled writing credit in his bio is a NYC Fringe entry, got a great idea one month before the infamously over-produced Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark was slated to open on Broadway. He would create a guerilla theatre project to write, rehearse, and perform a fully-realized musical based on the character Spider-Man in less than 30 days with a budget of $0 – making it the first Spider-Man musical to officially open in NYC. There were two performances of Spidey at the PIT (Peoples Improv Theatre). One attendee commented that the audience was full of 20- and 30-something fanboys and comedy nerds who snatched up all of the free tickets in less than a minute as soon as they become available online.

Moran told the NY Times that the goal wasn’t to “tear down director Julie Taymor or parody her production;” his objective was “to do what she should have done in the first place, and that’s just make a really good musical.” With book and lyrics by Moran and Jon Roufaeal and composers Adam Podd and Doug Katsaros (who wrote the well-known three-note jingle “By Mennon”), The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility is not a really good musical. It’s a fairly fun, occasionally entertaining, mindless, campy, Fringe Festival-like attempt that qualifies as a clever stunt rather than an innovative musical (the original can be viewed on YouTube). There are enough moments that transcend the inanity of the project, keeping the show from being a waste of time, but it is constantly brought down to earth by bad puns and simplistic song construction. This means that your teenagers will thank you for bringing them to this show.

The good moments are made even better at Studio/Stage with Chrzanowiski’s fast-paced direction and Michelle Stann’s primary-colored lights. Even with wildly uneven singing and acting, the entire cast is having a ball, and there is something infectious about that. Ryan J. Hill makes an adorable Peter Parker and Kyle Cooper is hysterically funny as his nemesis Flash Thompson (Cooper went so far as to elicit show-stopping guffaws as the high school bully).

It is amazing that Spidey was penned and staged in four weeks, but when an oddly-promising, unfinished conceit-of-a-musical is written in response to Big Bad Broadway, the irony is inescapable. Even as Moran made an inspiring point about what can be done with no budget and some heart, I wish the show were a parody of Turn Off the Dark, one that mocked and trivialized the runaway train of a flop/hit. An interesting lampoon would have contained actors getting injured by the cardboard cutouts of the New York skyline or Peter Parker becoming even nerdier in his Spider-Man outfit. Better yet, have Spiderman battle villains who are unscrupulous Broadway producers (a la David Merrick) and clever press reps (a la Jim Martyka at Theatre Unleashed) who create an enormous buzz around shows undeserving of such hype.

photos by Alicia Reyes

The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Theatre Unleashed at Studio/Stage in Los Angeles
scheduled to end on April 14
for tickets, call 818.849.4039 or visit http://www.theatreunleashed.com