Spider-Man Co-Star Deserts Problem-Plagued Musical on Broadway: How Many Other Imperiled Performers May Follow?

News today, out of the Wall Street Journal, that Spider-Man co-star Natalie Mendoza will be leaving the musical, long in trouble. She is still recovering from a concussion she sustained after a fall during the first preview performance at the Foxwoods Theatre. Show's opening was set back a month, to February 7. Three other performers have been injured. Stunt man Christopher Tierney, a close friend of Natalie's, was taken to hospital after a fall, and underwent back surgery. He is now in recovery mode.

Mendoza is not talking. Lawyers said to be hammering out an exit package. This was to have been Mendoza's first appearance in a Broadway house.

It's a a sad sad story from many angles. Cast was reported "demoralized" over injuries, resentful of director Julie Taymor, deemed coldly indifferent to safety issues.

Comments left on one website are in hissing lockstep uniformly negative, either asking how many more actors will suffer injuries or worse and/or claiming that a big turkey is clucking the boards, and it's time to apply the knife.

But not all patrons are grousing, and the troubled tuner has been drawing near full houses. Some patrons have expressed great pleasure in the production.

Will Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark actually reach an opening night panel of NY critics -- perhaps the ultimate peril it faces?

[Photo of Natlie Mendoza with her Spider-Man co-star Reeve Carney. by Bruce Gilkas/FilmMagic]

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Big Top Bits: Oz Flashes Flesh: Feld Folds Coney Canvas for Brooklyn’s Barclays ... Vargas Lands Prod.Placement in Water for Elephants Tease

If all else fails, Strip! Here comes yet a more "nude, rude and lewd" edition of that robustly risque little indoor trick I can live without, Circus Oz, from Down Under. And I do mean under. Show touting a "dropped" costume budget resulting in rising hemlines. Wonder if their horny little robot dog is still around, hoping and groping, jumping and humping. You can read up on that critter right here on the previous post (a look-back item slotted here by sheer coincidence before this Oz release vamped my way, thanks to cyber courier Don Covington ... Actually, you might have to fly Over There to see the scantly clad half-talented acrobats who make up this in-your-face cabaret of cross-dressers, doped-out S&M-ers and every other what-not under the fading sun. Laughing while she spoke, said director Anni Davey "We've said to the performers they can only have one costume and you can wear as much or as little of it as you like." Oh, they are soooo cutting edge. Might they be a tad desperate for more action at the ticket window? And the tent for this one, called the Blue Show, seats only 250. Yeah, you're correct, nudity sells. Even the great sentimentalist Oscar Hammerstein II once said, "the only thing people are really interested in is sex."

And then there was Cirque Berzerk, down there in Tinseltown, pitching on a website that nearly set my smoke alarm off. This year, offering a "darker, sexier" show. Guess they, too, can't make it on whatever talents they have. Just when I was ready to catch another troupe of modern-thinking sleazoids under a real tent, they have apparently ditched the canvas -- or plastic -- for Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles. I saw tickets priced over $300. Wonder if that comes with a little Club Nooky on the side? Remember when, once upon a season, women who dared to appear in sawdust rings were lumped together with ladies who lived in shady hotel rooms over brawling bars? Full circle we may have come. Now if you have a problem with my blogging, blame Don up there. (All kidding aside, I have Don of Covington to thank for so many interesting items he sends my way.)

Feld folds Canvas over Coney? That seems the likely story line to be. Big splash about Ringling-Barnum already booked to perform in the new 18,000 seat Barclays Center, now rising over Brooklyn down by Atlantic Yards in Prospect Heights. Performances then "expected to rival similar Ringling" shows seen at the Garden. To be "much more extravagant than the circus's popular one-ring tent show that performed the past two summers" by the boardwalk. Why does that sound like an ignorant insult to me, and why do I already feel deserted by a higher grade of Feld-produced circus entertainment? The best things in life might not last. I'm so worn out by the relentless sledgehammer showmanship of Feld Entertainment, I may skip the Big Show's visit out here next summer. And take in a Dick Garden production instead.

Big Promo Break for Circus Vargas: Call this the Cream of Covington: Video of a Water for Elephants movie trailer now sending promising sparks onto computer screens. In this particular tease (there are others not so on-point or arresting), you see the Vargas front door, wagons and signage. Clearly. Good going, Vargas! An older gent appears (wonder how many summers before I'm him?), in a reminiscent mood, perhaps about to share the story of his life. Says he was with Benzini Bros. Circus in 1931. That's when "the most famous circus disaster of all time" occurred. OK, I'm tentatively hooked on what I saw, just hoping we are not about to witness another circus disaster in the making. Other Water teasers I cruised got stranded off the lot in fancy ballrooms and back of the track hotel rooms, with woozy ballads hardly from the thirties mucking up the must. Oh, let's go somewhere else, it was looking and feeling so authentically good for a while. Woody Allen, that's who, should direct a circus flick, one as rich and good as his masterful flick, Radio Days ...

God Bless the Pope, I suppose: He was recently feted by acrobats from Fratelli Pelligrini, who "took off their shirts." Well aware of certain scandals surrounding this beleaguered church of a thousand illicit confessions, I'd better leave that alone and be on my way ...

Finally, Doc Bob Dewel of Baraboo chirping in to tell me that Circus World Museum's fformidable library now has a new librarian, he being Pete Shrake, a one-time "head mojo" at the Sauk County Historical Society, with a particular fondness for Civil War re-enactments. Let's see, what type of circus wagon came out of that era. Drats! Not the Thimble Theatre fun house.

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My Warmest Christmas Greetings to All ... Holiday Lights from My Own Backyard

Images I snapped of the Fourth Annual Holiday Circle of Lights at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, and easy stroll from where I live (not in the cemetery).

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On the Spider-Man Watch: Under New Safety Rules, Actors Can Arbitrarily Stop Show If they Feel Endangered; NYT Questions Show's Circus Push ...

From reports today in The New York Times, stunt aerial actors using harnesses (mechanics, I assume) must first be vocally certified as being properly rigged and attached to the lifelines by two or three stage staffers, and they themselves must give a thumbs up before the stage manager can authorize each flight.

They have also been given the authority to arbitrarily and suddenly stop the show if they sense rigging problems or danger in the air.

In a two-hour cast meeting at which director Julie Taymor took questions, a "demoralized" company questioned why they had not been give more tech rehearsals.

A Times editorial questioned the unconventionally complex production, expressing a degree of apprehension that it may not be suitable for the stage. "....this production may represent the point at which legitimate theater lumbers into terrain that belongs to the circus."

Show was reported ready to resume performances as of tonight.

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Circus in Film: Cirque du Soleil Due Out in 3D ... I'll Take Retro 2D

Director James Cameron (Titanic; Avatar) joining visions with Cirque du Soleil to put its acrobats in 3D movies. First project, nameless so far, now in production. What to make of it all? Circus action has not always translated well on film. That third dimension just might make it a more viable experience.

Of course, it could also further distance circus art from the grittier realities it once captured. Lately, I'm finding myself being pulled backward in a black and white, very 2D direction, thanks to some old cinema discoveries. They remind us of how far our ring stars have advanced away from old-fashioned sawdust drama, escaping through a maze of fog machines and special effects, masks and trenchant body-movement allusions to Big Themes. These old movies come crudely alive, and yet they celebrate things we are losing.

This evening, I watched an old 1937 flick, Circus Girl. You'll discover in these B movies now and then those acts that once thrilled your Mom and Pop. Heck, that once thrilled me. Circus Girl ends up over a cage teaming with distempered lions; above it, a trapeze flyer in a Suicide Act, billed to swing high, sans net, over the Big Cage, sans net also. Love envy has placed him in this perilous position, as a romantic rival in love with his wife has weakened a rope that will fail and drop him, if all goes as planned, into the jaws of those angry wild animals.

It's worth seeing how he is narrowly saved from the unthinkable. Better watching the evil saboteur taking the tumble instead. Great climax! Trap maneuvers executed by the Escalante Family. One of them, a lone female aerialist, executes stellar moving heel and toe catches on the single bar. In the simplistic realm of this very old movie, yet there are viable elements to recall and think about. Are circuses giving these dynamics up at their own box office peril?

Another cheap low-down second-rate cinema treat worth sending to your Netflix queue is 1966's Circus of Fear. A circle of thieves, one of whom is fatally stabbed during a botched up heist, end up on a circus lot, in the midst of a plot I can hardly remember concerning an assassin. They become embroiled in some wayward backyard intrigue. Around this stuff, a few good acts entertain.

What I vividly recall is a woman strapped to a revolving disc while swords come whizzing through her limbs on the prop. Nothing nearly as subtle or subtly sexxy as that Cordon woman on the Ringling show in the mid-1950s. Retro all the way. A stale blast of fresh air.

For a rare moment (pre PC, pre circus ballet), I could feel an old guiltless boyhood thrill.

Maybe it's time to watch Ring of Fear Again. Closer to the old now disgraced order. Yeah, I know -- basic costumes embroidered with sequins over bodies that look like human bodies. Growling lions and tigers. Daring whip masters unafraid to show anger. Kinky side show freaks flaunting their physical eccentricities. Loud smoky barkers. The gawking crowds, eyes wide open to the hooky yet -- lest we forget -- very real threat of it all.

The world, uncensored. The real world.

Now, if director Cameron and his 3d cameras could turn their focus onto something like that ...

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Dangerous Nights on Broadway: "Accident Prone" Spider-Man Musical Should Mandate Hard Hats for Orchestra Seats -- And That's No Joke

"If Spider-Man makes it out of previews," cracked TV personality David Holmes, "it will be the leading cause of death in the state of New York."

"Please pray with me for my friend, Chris, " said one of the show's stars, Natalie Mendoza, referring to stunt double Christopher Tierney, who during a Monday night show, fell 30 feet to the stage when a rope attached to his sailing body suddenly malfunctioned.

When Tierney went down, "you started to hear people screaming in the pit," recounted Christine Bord, a balcony ticket holder.

The seriously injured actor was ambulanced off. Shortly after, customers were sent home.

Taken to Bellvue Hospital, Tierney was reported to have suffered only minor injuries. But a report in The New York Times had the hospital listing him in serious condition.

Producers conferred this morning with various labor officials and Actor's Equity reps to rethink safety measures for immediate implementation.

"It is clear that we need to give the team more time to fully execute their vision," conceded lead producer Michale Cohl.

Commenting on the problem plagued previews that have caused at least three other injuries so far, including a brain concussion, actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson shared his own fears: "I'm torn between wanting to see 'Spiderman" on Broadway and not wanting to see someone literally die doing musical theatre."

TV hosts have been making hay with Spider-Man jokes.

And what had the mayor of New York city to say about all this? "Hopefully, they'll get all the bugs out, sighed an apparently unphased Michael Bloomberg. "I'm told it's phenomenally complex, which is one of the reason's that it's going to be such a great show. We do have certain laws to make things safe, and we will certainly enforce the laws."

The production has been under skeptical radar for weeks by the federal Occupational and Health Administration. Their monitoring will only intensify, said OSHA spokesman John Chavez. Among actions being taken by the agency are employee interviews, examination of equipment and records kept to determine if fed safety laws are being flouted.

There are those thrill seekers who will no doubt flock to this eerie extravaganza. How many of them, however, will relish sitting directly under all of the action? Were I to go, I'd sit way up in there in the Gods; no way would I put myself in harm's way, out in the priciest seats where I could get dumped up by unscripted mishaps.

Will Spider-Man even make it to opening night, February 7? Can it ever be a safe work of art? I once built a model roller coaster, and am still every few years trying to make it a perfect operation; it never has been and likely never will. The troubling travails of this Julie Taymor-conceived work, ominously overloaded with impractical stunts requiring the rigging of a three-ring big top, remind me of my own reliably imperfect creation. One audience member injured and this show is off the boards.

In order to make back its $65 million investment, the company will have to play to sold-out crowds for several years. I'll make my own chancy prediction: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will be in the dark within 7-8 months, all of its money wasted.

Perhaps there should be a license to practice circus on Broadway. Clearly, Spider-Man's staff would flunk out.

[Material for this post was drawn from the AP report by John Carucci and Tom McElroy]

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Spider-Man, Oh Spider-Man! RU Stuck and Sinking in Cobwebs of Catastrophic Confusion? ... Show Delays Opening by a Month for Frantic Revamps ...

Sony Pictures Imageworks/AP/AP

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, now in previews at the Foxwoods Theatre, guaranteed at least to set one new all-time record -- most number of previews before opening night, assuming new opening night on February 7 actually happens.

Book writers Julie Taymor, who also directs, and Glen Berger, said to be grasping all tweeters and twits and Yelps! from every which source, desperate to understand how to fix a problem-plagued second act. Daily dialogue rewrites in the works. Seems that Ms. Taymor veered seriously off course in her after-intermission scripting fantasies, concocting her own plots not convincingly connected to Spider-Man lore, causing grave audience discontent.

As of this moment, to nobody's knowledge has a script doctor yet been called in. Script doctors on occasion have been credited for turning sick song and dancers into at least half-way functioning song and dancers, some of them surprising hits. It's all in the cobwebs.

Incredibly, according to a reports gleaned from Bloomberg and The New York Times, the composing team of U2's Bono and The Edge, currently on tour outside the States (possibly to escape Gotham embarrassments) has not yet even seen the show in previews. They are expected to join the company in a week or so, huddle in consultations, and "perhaps" compose some additional tunes.

Are they rearranging the chairs on the Titanic? Have we here another Banana Shpeel?

Spider-Man is said to contain spectacular aerial work never before seen in a Broadway musical. As of late November, there were reported to be "35 aerial flights in the production."

Cutting edge and injury-causing, too. Natalie Mendoza back on the boards last Wednesday night, having recovered during a two week absence from a concussion she suffered backstage during the kick-off preview.

Previous holder of the most previews was Nick & Norah, the monumental flop of 1991, which ran a total of 71 try-out performances before it officially opened while robust revisions were interpolated by the show's Tony Award-winning director, Arthur Laurents. All for naught. Nick & Norah finally uncorked on December 8, 1991, was pelted on by a slew of nasty reviews, and was history a week later.

Cirque du Soleil failed to capture the stage. Can Spider-Man capture the circus?

Ah, Broadway! You rarely let us down, whether producing blockbusters -- or bombs.

Reeve Carney as Peter Parker and ensemble rehearsing a number in the show. Photo by Jacob Cohl, from culture.wnyc.org

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