By Blair Feller

Who would have ever imagined watching Spiderman, not in 2-D, but real human form, fly throughout New York City with the greatest of ease? Not me! I went to New York City to see the musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark with my family a week or so ago. And let me tell you, a real Spider-Man beats the comic character a thousand to one.

The plotline of the musical was basically the same as the first Spider-Man movie. It begins with Spidey and his fellow classmates. Some are bullies, who enjoy making Peter Parker’s (played by Reeve Carney) life miserable. And another classmate is Mary Jane (played by Jennifer Damiano), Peter’s crush who lives next door. The performance begins with Peter making a presentation about the myth of Arachne (played by T.V. Carpio). (For those of you not familiar with this Greek myth, it all started with a beautiful woman, Arachne. She was the best mortal weaver. I believe it was Athena—a goddess, who supposedly was the best immortal weaver—who challenged her to a weaving contest. Arachne accepted the challenge. After the contest was over, Athena put Arachne in her place by making her into a spider herself.) Arachne became Spider-Man’s mentor and supporter later in the musical. After his presentation was over, we soon meet all of the bullies (played by Matt Caplan, Luther Creek, Christopher W. Tierney, and Dwayne Clark), as well as Mary Jane (MJ). Then the class moves onto Norman Osborn’s (played by Patrick Page) laboratory – this special treat was granted by Mr. Osborn himself because Peter had won first place at the science fair. As you may know from the movie, Mr. Osborn is a genius, and in the play, he is trying to create a type of human being that will be able to survive through any disaster. Here, Peter Parker is bitten by an evolutionalized spider – and becomes Spider-Man. From there on, it is pretty much the same as the first movie. MJ is caught into some seriously dangerous situations, and Spidey saves her. Mr. Osborn uses his brains to make himself into a super human, and becomes the Green Goblin. In the production, he believes that some of his fellow co-workers created Spider-Man, and he takes six of them, and works his magic on them, creating the Sinister Six: Swarm (played by Gerald Avery), The Lizard (played by Brandon Rubendall), Electro (played by Emmanuel Brown), Kraven the Hunter (played by Christopher W. Tierney), Carnage (played by Collin Baja), and Swiss Miss (played by Sean Samuels). The Six and Goblin take to the streets and create havoc. But Spider-Man saves the day, and puts the Six behind bars. The Green Goblin fights back and takes MJ and puts her on the Empire State building. And the following fight happened, all above our heads! The Goblin fought with Spider-Man and almost thought he had won, but it was Spidey’s intelligence and creativity that put the Goblin in his place. And everyone lived happily ever after, until the next Super Villain emerged out of the gallows.

The music for the musical was phenomenal, but then again I wouldn’t expect anything less from Bono and The Edge. Having the performance be a musical, some would think that the production would be kind of cheesy. But not one song, one lyric, one note, was put in the wrong place. Each musical number was created with the perfect tone, tune, and feeling. So much so that it made your head spin. My personal favorites are “Bouncing off the Walls” and “A Freak like me.” This first song was sung by Peter Parker and his fellow classmates. It was all about how he felt after being bitten by that mutant spider. The second was sung by the Green Goblin after he had created the Sinister Six. With each upbeat lyric, you couldn’t help but feel the excitement coming off of the stage and tap your feet. (The whole album is on iTunes. Check it out!)

Another cool part of the production was the costumes for the superhero and villain. The main super villain, the Green Goblin, had the most eccentric outfit. Since he had all of the best genes from some of the greatest animals of all time, he looked like all of them in one specimen. He was green (of course), he had gills, spiky feathers on all of his limbs, some type of lizard skin covering his legs, and elf ears, and yet, somehow, his face still represented that of a human being. Spider-Man had the same costume as he does in the movie and on the pieces of paper, the red body suit covered in spider webs, but it was awesome to see on a real person!

My favorite part of the whole musical was probably the feeling the audience got from just sitting in the theater! Even though Spider-Man himself was in 3D, you felt like you were in the comic strip with all of the characters. The back-drops and even some characters were created with that perfect effect. So the audience got mixed feelings. One was that the superhero, Spider-Man, and his life were very much real. The other was that we were inside a comic strip. I don’t know the producers did it, but it all worked very nicely!

In short, if you like to go to New York City, for any reason at all, go stop into the musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. You will be astonished by the creativity, musical numbers, and costumes that fly above your head!