Spider-Man left hanging at Bono’s musical debut

After huge delays, injured performers and a production bill of $65 million, Bono’s musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark made its much-anticipated debut at New York’s Foxwoods Theatre last night, with audience members chronicling the entire event on Twitter.
 
Directed by Julie Taymor, the woman behind the hit musical The Lion King, and featuring an original score by U2’s The Edge and Bono, Spider-Man has been eight years in the making and is the most expensive Broadway production ever made.
 
The good news for Bono is that parts of the show were said to be spectacular, with groundbreaking aerial work choreographed by the famous acrobatic company Cirque du Soleil. But the first preview was riddled with production problems, which saw Spider-Man actor Reeve Carney left hanging above the audience before a stage hand could fish him down. Very unbecoming for a superhero.
 
There were stoppages throughout the three-and-a half-hour show, with the first act alone interrupted four times, prompting one disgruntled member of the audience to ask for a refund. In some scenes parts of the set were missing, as were some of the actors who missed their marks amid the confusion.
 
The New York Post reports: "Last night's opening preview was an epic flop… Stunned audience members were left scratching their heads over the confusing plot - when they weren't ducking for cover from falling equipment and dangling actors."
 
The pièce de résistance came when actress Natalie Mendoza, who plays the radioactive spider Arachne, was left hanging above the audience for an excruciating eight minutes.

Despite all of this, most industry insiders and fans understood that the whole point of a preview is to iron out these problems. As TomHTweets posted on Twitter: "Spidey got stuck over audience just before the break, but overall: WOW on flying thru theater."
 
With six weeks to go before the show officially opens on January 11, Taymor still has time to make sure her leading actors are not left hanging around.

As for Bono and The Edge, they were not in town for the preview, having joined the rest of U2 on tour in Australia. "They're lucky, they've gotten out of Dodge," one cast member told the Daily Mail. "It's too bad they're not here to help defend their work." ·