ScheckOnTheater

After several delayed openings, endless technical problems and myriad cast injuries, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has finally landed on Broadway, officially at least. The much maligned, reportedly $70 million musical about the popular comic book web-slinger has now opened after an unprecedented 183 previews, despite the withering reviews from impatient critics who jumped the gun a few months ago.

The retooled show, widely and waggishly referred to as “Version 2.0,” features a new director, Philip Wm. McKinley--here billed as “creative consultant”—and a greatly revised book, credited to original stager Julie Taymor, Glen Berger and new contributor Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Most of the original score by U2’s Bono and The Edge remains intact, with the addition of one new number, “A Freak Like Me,” delivered in campy fashion by the villainous Green Goblin.

The good news is that the show is greatly improved since its hiatus. Aguirre-Sacasa has simplified and tightened up the story, eliminating many of Taymor’s more metaphysical conceits, not to mention the “Geek chorus” of nerdy teens who annoying commented on the action. The role of the mythical spider-based character Arachne (T.V. Carpio) has been greatly reduced, along with her infamous, shoe-oriented musical number. The central conflict between Spidey and the Green Goblin has been beefed up, as has the central love story between Peter Parker and his high school sweetheart Mary Jane (Jennifer Damiano). The result is a much more cohesive, albeit rather pedestrian scenario that is undeniably easier to follow.

Most of Taymor’s elaborate design elements have been retained. George Tsypin’s lavish sets, making extensive use of multiple perspectives, comic book-style visuals and giant LED screens, provide constant eye candy, as do the wonderfully grotesque costumes and masks designed by Eiko Ishioka and Taymor respectively. The flying sequences, which now seem thankfully free of technical glitches, are as impressive as ever. Wisely, the spectacular battle between Spider Man and the Goblin, which used to end Act One, now constitutes the show’s climax.

Unfortunately, the evening remains an underwhelming theatrical experience, with the biggest disappointment being the unmemorable score. Bono and The Edge, who have written so many stirring anthems for U2, have failed to work similar magic here, with pedestrian music and lyrics that--with rare exceptions such as “Rise Above” and the lovely ballad “If the World Should End”--fail to be sufficiently stirring. While the sound mix has been improved, no doubt due to the increased presence of the composers in recent months, it’s not enough to make the music soar to the heights that it should.

As Parker/Spider Man, Reeve Carney boasts both an engaging stage presence and a powerful singing voice well suited to the rock-flavored score. He’s well matched by the winsome Damiano as Mary Jane, with Michael Mulheren, as Parker’s tyrannical boss, and Isabel Keating, in a variety of roles including Aunt May, providing solid support.

But it’s Patrick Page who, with his wonderfully campy, self-referential turn as the Green Goblin, steals the show and injects the frequently lugubrious proceedings with much needed antic humor. Maybe the show’s creators could go back to the drawing board yet again and make his character the evening’s primary focus. It would be a lot more fun.            

Foxwoods Theatre, 213 W. 42nd St. 877-250-2929. www.ticketmaster.com.

A musical whose themes encompass the Holocaust and Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t exactly qualify as a feel good experience. That’s perfectly fine—there’s plenty of room on the boards for serious musicals these days. But the Roundabout’s The People in the Picture squanders its good intentions with its ham-fisted execution, a plethora of cheap jokes, and the sort of Jewish stereotypes (an elderly mother tries to score a handsome doctor for her single daughter, among other things) that may please elderly matinee ladies but few others.

Set in 1977 New York City and Warsaw, Poland from 1935 to 1946, the show, written by Iris Rainer Dart (Beaches) revolves around Raisel, alternately seen as an elderly grandmother and a young Yiddish theater star with the “Warsaw Gang,” a popular troupe in pre-World War II Poland.

 The company’s members are introduced via their being seen within one of the giant antique wooden frames that are the show’s main scenic element. Raisel is determined to acquaint her young granddaughter Jenny (Rachel Reshelf) with these figures from her past, as well as reconnect her with her Jewish roots that have been severed by her mother, Red (Nicole Parker).

The show alternates between past and present as we see Raisel and her fellow actors contending with the increasing brutalization perpetrated by the Nazis and later her struggling with the disease that is sapping her of her mental faculties.

A major plot element, one that explains Red’s disaffection with her mother, revolves around Raisel’s decision to safeguard her young daughter by entrusting them to a Christian couple and then later wrenching the traumatized young girl away from her loving adoptive parents.

But the show’s serious themes are undercut by the jokey book, which includes such gags as the troupe’s diva commenting, “I believe that if one surrounds oneself with the proper hair and make-up people, one need never go to elder care.”

The lyrics, also written by Dart, are even more wince inducing. Consider this sample from “Remember Who You Are,” about the troupe’s director (Christopher Invar) considering an offer to work in Hollywood: “They’ll change your name/Dye your hair/Re-install a foreskin/Remember who you are/When they step in and try to redo you/Remember who you are/’Cause they’re all going to try to unjew you.” 

And the less said about the excerpt from the company’s musical comedy version of The Debunk, the better.

What makes the evening bearable, and sometimes more than that, is the steady anchoring presence of Donna Murphy. The formidable musical theater actress has rarely been better, not only singing gorgeously here but also handling the quicksilver transformations between the younger and older versions of her character with breathtaking facility.

She’s well supported by the rest of the ensemble, including Resheff, previously seen as the young Princess Fiona in Shrek, displaying a precocious talent; Parker, who infuses her less than sympathetic character with real depth; and such pros as Chip Zien, Lewis J. Stadlin, Joyce Van Patten and Alexander Gemignani making strong impressions as members of the Warsaw Gang.

Leonard Foglia’s direction and Andy Blankenbuehler’s musical staging is reasonably adept, even if it too often calls to mind Fiddler on the Roof.

The musical score--written by veteran pop songwriter Mike Stoller (“Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock” and countless other classics with his partner Jerry Leiber) and Artie Butler—boasts few memorable numbers, with the exception of the stirring “We Were Here.”

The People in the Picture is an ambitious and well-meaning show, to be sure. Unfortunately, that only serves to make its many flaws all the more glaring.

Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. 212-719-1300. www.roundabouttheatre.org.

It may be a time capsule of a play, but the sterling new Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart reveals that it has lost none of its urgency or power. A semi-fictionalized account of the beginning of the AIDS crisis and the efforts of a group of dedicated activists to spur the city and country into action, this work, first seen in 1985 in a landmark production at the Public Theater, is relentlessly gripping and moving.

This version co-directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe began life as a one-night benefit reading last November. Newly staged with several of its roles recast, it marks a long belated Broadway debut for the work.

The central character, based on the playwright, is Ned Weeks, whose fierceness and oft-expressed hostility soon put him at odds with both the authority figures he was lobbying and his colleagues in the organization (the Gay Men’s Health Crisis) that he co-founded.

Joe Mantello, in his first acting gig since his starring turn nearly two decades ago in the Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, is absolutely superb in the leading role, leading one to hope that this now celebrated director (Wicked and Take Me Out, among many others) will return to performing on a more regular basis.

He’s well supported by a sterling ensemble that includes John Benjamin Hickey, heartbreaking as Ned’s New York Times journalist lover who contracts the disease; Lee Pace, as the more diplomatic co-head of the organization; Jim Parsons (TV’s The Big Bang Theory), sardonically funny as one of its impassioned members, and Ellen Barkin, as the polio-afflicted doctor distraught over the growing number of her patients becoming afflicted. Other roles are well handled by such pros as Patrick Breen, Mark Harelik and Richard Topol.

The urgently written piece borders on being polemical while sacrificing none of its human drama. Among the evening’s highlights are two wrenching monologues: one by Pace in which his character describes in wrenching detail the death of his lover, and another featuring Barkin delivering an increasingly intense, showstopping harangue about the refusal of the government and media to recognize the severity of the epidemic.  

It all proceeds with the urgency of a great political thriller, that like the film All the President’s Men, is completely involving despite the fact that the audience essentially knows what’s going to happen.

Simply staged with a minimum of props, the production features a series of projections depicting the names of actual victims of the disease. As the events of the play--which takes place from 1981 to 1984--progress, the names swell to the point where they cover the entire rear and side walls of the theater.

As they leave the theater, audience members are handed a letter by Kramer in which he strongly argues the case that the plague is far from over and that much more work needs to be done. It’s a comforting reminder that this impassioned activist, now in his mid-seventies, is still fighting the good fight.

Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45thSt. 212-239-6200. www.Telecharge.com.

You can’t say that the new musical Baby It’s You! is shy about its intentions. In the opening moments of this show about the mega-selling ‘60s girl group The Shirelles, an image of a jukebox is projected. Clearly this new effort conceived by Floyd Mutrux (Million Dollar Quartet) is aiming to be a jukebox musical competitor to Jersey Boys. Except in this case a more accurate title would be “Jersey Girls.”

Written by Mutrux and Collin Escott, the show is actually less concerned with The Shirelles, who barely emerge as characters here, than in telling the story of Florence Greenberg, the Passaic, New Jersey housewife who became a record mogul and shepherded the group to stardom.

Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone) stars as the driven Greenberg, a pre-feminist era music industry pioneer who discovered the singing group at her daughter’s high school. Much to the consternation of her husband Bernie (Barry Pearl), she embarked on a career that eventually led to her own independent record label, Scepter Records, and a string of hits by the group that included “Dedicated to the One I Love,” “Soldier Boy,” “Mama Said” and “Baby It’s You.”

Those songs are dutifully recreated here (with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” a surprising omission). But since the group didn’t have all that many chart-topping singles, the show’s score is augmented by other classics from the era like “Sixteen Candles,” “Shout,” “Louie Louie,” “It’s My Party,” “Duke of Earl” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” among many others.

Awkwardly intermingling songs done performance style and in the context of the book—at one point Bernie chides his wife by singing “Yakety Yak”—the show lacks the narrative drive and theatrical pizzazz that has made Jersey Boys such a smash. Most of the drama stems from Greenberg’s interracial affair with Luther Dixon (Allan Louis), the record producer/composer who became her partner in the company.

But it’s still pretty entertaining, thanks to the non-stop assemblage of memorable pop hits that are well performed by the ensemble, which includes Erica Ash, Kyra Da Costa, Christina Sajous and Crystal Starr Knighton as the Shirelles and Geno Henderson impersonating such stars as Chuck Jackson, Ron Isley and Gene Chandler as well as performing narration duties.

Leavel anchors the proceedings with her dynamic performance in the central role, as well as lending her impressive pipes to such numbers as “Don’t Make Me Over” and “Tonight’s the Night.” She also looks terrific in an array of eye-popping outfits courtesy of costume designer Lizz Wolf.

The other performers do mainly well by their sketchily written roles, although some of them come dangerously close to caricature.

Relying heavily on projections of vintage photos evoking the era, the production is little more than serviceable, although it moves briskly along under the direction of Mutrux and Sheldon Epps. The music is really the star here, with Don Sebesky’s arrangements well played by the eight-piece band whose members are located on multiple platforms above the stage.  

Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St. 212-239-6200. www.Telecharge.com.

In his revelatory production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, director David Cromer unearthed the darkness underlying a play that is usually presented as a paean to a more innocent America. He applies the same approach to the new Broadway revival of John Guare’s 1966 absurdist comedy The House of Blue Leaves, but with vastly diminished results. The production captures the desperation and pathos of the play’s troubled characters, but at the cost of the play’s humor.

This is yet another star-driven revival, albeit one with some pedigree. Ben Stiller plays the lead role of Artie Shaughnessy, the Queens zookeeper who dreams of making it big as a songwriter, and it’s something of a homecoming--he played the AWOL son Ronnie in the landmark 1986 Lincoln Center production, and his mother, Anne Meara, appeared in the play’s 1971 Off-Broadway premiere. He’s joined here by Edie Falco as Artie’s schizophrenic wife Bananas, and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Bunny, the downstairs neighbor with whom Artie plans to flee to California in pursuit of stardom.

As the play begins, we see Artie singing his terrible songs in a seedy bar while being pointedly ignored by the loud patrons. As he keeps desperately pleading for their attention, the scene seems to go on forever, and his pain becomes palpable. Unfortunately, it soon comes to be shared by the audience.

Guare’s play requires a delicate balance of tone to be successful, which director Jerry Zaks provided in the Lincoln Center revival. He was aided by a pitch-perfect cast: John Mahoney, who brought charm as well as pathos to Artie; Swoosie Kurtz, heartbreakingly moving as Bananas; and Stockard Channing, wonderfully funny as Bunny.

Here, the major cast members don’t seem to jell. Falco emphasizes Bananas’ emotional catatonia to such a degree that it simply becomes tedious. Leigh’s Bunny is all surface mannerisms with little of the charm that would entice anyone to run away with her. And Stiller, normally so adept at conveying passive-aggressive obnoxiousness, barely registers in the lead role.

Some compensation is provided by the supporting players, especially Alison Pill, who lives up to her last name with her endearingly daffy portrayal of the deaf Hollywood starlet who shows up at the apartment, and Halley Feiffer, as one of the trio of nuns who burst onto the premises hoping for a good vantage point to witness the impending arrival of the Pope. And Christopher Abbott, as the son who dreams of becoming famous by an act of terrorism, beautifully nails his hilarious monologue about auditioning for the role of Huckleberry Finn for his father’s childhood friend (Thomas Sadoski), now a big shot Hollywood director.

The evening walks a very fine line between wild comedy and tragedy, but director Cromer seems intent only on delivering the latter. On that level he succeeds, with the shocking climactic act of violence rendered with a visceral intensity. House of Blue Leaves has lost none of its relevance in its exploration of both ordinary souls living lives of not so quiet desperation and the irresistible allure of fame. But this overly muted rendition, while occasionally displaying moments of stunning theatricality, provides little of the sugar that would help its medicine go down.

Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200. www.Telecharge.com.