Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History Read online

  And during a forty-eight-hour creative binge, poring through comic books supplied to her by a volunteer geek, something in the first issue of the Ultimate Spider-Man series caught her eye. There on the first page, in the second panel, the character Norman Osborn recounts the myth of Arachne. Arachne was an artist so talented, and so intoxicated by her talent, that she refused to humble herself before anyone, even the goddess Athena. Ovid narrated in his Metamorphoses that when Arachne mocked Athena in a weaving contest, the irate goddess destroyed Arachne’s tapestry. In response, Arachne hanged herself with one of the tattered remnants of her own work. But! Athena didn’t allow Arachne to die. Instead, she transformed the girl into the world’s first spider. Arachne, an artist condemned to the shadows; Arachne, weaving her gossamer threads for eternity; Arachne, the future mother of all spiders. Arachne. There we go—Spark, meet Tinder. Julie had her hook. She called Tony. She was in.

  In Ireland, in February 2003, Julie introduced Arachne to her new collaborators. They would meet again in the South of France, enthusiastically spinning musical and narrative ideas. By March 2004, Marvel had signed off on the creative team and, nine months after that, Neil Jordan delivered a twenty-two-page treatment to Julie, outlining the thirty scenes of their prospective musical.

  What Julie read that January was detailed, imaginative, dark, and dauntingly . . . cinematic.

  Neil Jordan has almost always been the author of the films he has directed. Mona Lisa, Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy—Mr. Jordan can point to an impressive résumé as a writer. But he had never written for the theatre. And when Julie encouraged him to let his imagination run free, he gravitated toward scenes with complicated effects that would be almost impossible to render on a stage.

  Julie delivered a wildebeest stampede in The Lion King. If you can serve up a wildebeest stampede, what can’t you deliver on a stage? Well, really scrutinize that stampede. Because you first hear the distant rumbling of hooves, but no, snap out of it—those aren’t hooves, they’re kettledrums. And on the horizon, that blurry herd kicking up dust and getting nearer? They’re just paintings of animals on a long scroll that’s spinning fast. There’s no dust, no horizon. And they’re not getting nearer—larger wildebeest puppets have simply been introduced. And the charging wildebeests now full-sized and practically on top of you? They don’t even look like wildebeests—they’re dancers with hairy pants and horned shields stamping their feet to louder drums. And Julie staged it this way because her objective wasn’t to render reality. It was to make an impression.

  So, it was really Neil Jordan the screenwriter who described in his treatment how Peter and Mary Jane’s big second-act love song “is interrupted by a wind, which drags hats, umbrellas, deckchairs, even a little girl in its wake. Peter grabs the little girl, holds her to the trunk of a swaying tree. Then, freezing rain, encasing everyone in icicles . . .”

  His treatment depicted Norman Osborn as a fanatical scientist who becomes disfigured during a laboratory experiment. However, in Neil Jordan’s telling, Norman Osborn never becomes the Green Goblin, and the narrative’s primary villain is Arachne. Continuing a predilection seen in such films of his as The Crying Game or The Miracle, Mr. Jordan zeroed in on Arachne’s potential for sexual unorthodoxy. Norman Osborn, flirting with the disguised Arachne, “strokes Arachne’s shoe, remarks on the delicacy of the foot beneath it. ‘There are more where that came from,’ she remarks, whereupon another foot probes his crotch, reducing him to paroxysms of ecstasy. . . . More and more legs emerge and twine around him, and his song of ecstasy becomes a wail of terror . . .”

  Mr. Jordan’s culminated with Spider-Man vanquishing the unrepentant spider-woman. Peter sends her “hurtling toward the dark waters of the Hudson” to her death.

  “It was all and always you,” sings Mary Jane.

  “I loved you. And he loved you,” Peter sings.

  “But you are he. Even now you love me.”

  And Peter Parker bends down toward Mary Jane, turning upside down on his web, and kisses her again.

  The End.

  After reading what Neil had delivered, Tony and Julie gave Neil their notes. Or rather, their one note: They were cutting him loose. The awkwardness of the situation wasn’t lost on Julie. After all, Neil had brought her onto the project in the first place. It pained her that their friendship went into the freezer as a result. But as she sighed to me during an elevator ride years later, “I’m not sure what else I could have done.”

  3

  * * *

  A Falling Piano

  In 2005, my friend Jules was working as Julie Taymor’s personal assistant. I learned through her that Julie and the producers had begun searching for a new writer. Or rather, a new cowriter. To avoid being disappointed a second time, Julie was going to get more involved in the generation of Spider-Man’s story and dialogue (known as the musical’s “book”).

  Celebrated playwrights like Tony Kushner and Tom Stoppard were considered and dismissed. Finally, a handful of playwrights were asked to deliver a scene based on a two-page “vision” of the musical that Julie had penned the year before. But dialogue is generally the least interesting part of a Julie Taymor production. Giving Julie a few pages of the stuff seemed to me like a recipe for disappointment.

  So I didn’t submit a scene. Instead, I turned in a treatise explaining why I wouldn’t be submitting a scene. I raged, I rambled, I explained Julie Taymor’s entire career to her. I spewed half-baked ideas for ten dense pages and ended it all with “Or perhaps not. Anyway, it’s a thought.” It read like I was on drugs.

  I was simply wiped out meeting writing deadlines for PBS, and distracted coraising two toddlers. And, most of all, I just wasn’t taking the assignment seriously because I knew there was no way I was landing this gig. Yes, I had pages of sparkling pull-quotes, and yes, I had been following Julie’s career half my life. In fact, it was painfully obvious (to me) that out of the five billion writers in this universe, I was the writer they were looking for. But. C’mon. Julie Taymor? Bono? Spider-Man? There was no way I was landing this gig.

  But Julie had actually seen my Off-Broadway play Underneath the Lintel, and something in it resonated with her. Tony and Julie read my ravings, were intrigued enough to request an interview, and that next week, on a sunny Saturday in May, I was ringing the bell to Julie’s Union Square office.

  I left an hour later with my brain fizzing. Tony had this warm, casual-yet-stylish vibe that put you immediately at ease, as if he had just handed you a mimosa. And Julie? Her aura cleared the sinuses. We three sat at that long table of white-painted wood—Julie’s artwork from a thirty-year madly inspired career decorating the walls—and I didn’t want to have to leave this place, this world where spring breezes wafted in through loft windows, and everything that hit the eye was pleasing. I wanted to soak in it, for a while at least, yes, absolutely—what did I have to do to make that happen? Write a scene? I’ll have it for you tomorrow.

  So, up late that night I settled on a setup that had the Green Goblin hoisting a grand piano to the spire of the Chrysler Building. We’d have him sing something cocktail-loungey and unhinged—why not? I had nothing to lose. I typed out a scene containing lots of puppet-violence, beginning with the Green Goblin proposing a partnership with his archenemy, and ending with the Goblin pushing a Steinway off a skyscraper only to be sent to his own death because he didn’t realize he was attached to the piano by Spider-Man’s webbing. A little inelegant, but whatever.

  Birds had begun twittering outside my window; the sun was rising. I hit SEND. That afternoon my cell phone rang. It was Julie. I was the new bookwriter for Spider-Man the Musical.

  So, yes, this scene got me the job; and yes, it was that easy; and yes, this same scene . . . this same scene would lead to Julie’s dismissal from the Spider-Man project. The scene I wrote that night would lead to lawsuits, shattered friendships . . . tears . . . scandal . . . rigmarole . . .

  But all that would come much later.
It was nothing but innocence on May 15, 2005, when Julie and I rendezvoused at her Upstate New York country house to dive into the story. We didn’t take a break. If we did, I don’t remember it. What I remember was how I kept staring at my new cowriter. She was mesmerizing. Her movements, her gestures—even when she wasn’t paying attention to them—had not only a grace, but a precision.

  Dance traditions from around the world have catalogued the kinetic phrases that most potently connote emotion and drama. Anyone can study them, but a dancer’s body intuitively understands them. Julie possessed this talent (when she was sixteen, she even lived on her own in Paris studying mime), and it was undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools in her kit. It meant she could more effectively elucidate, intimidate, captivate, and otherwise persuade. And in Julie’s business—whether it’s pitching a project to investors or getting her collaborators to embrace a vision—persuasion was the name of the game.

  So, there we were at her country house, brainstorming, and at one point she stood up to describe yet another idea—this one had Peter Parker visited by Arachne in a dream and becoming entwined in web silks coming out of their hands. . . . And this graceful, intense, and absolutely erotic Indian dance Julie was suddenly executing changed the room, excited the particles in the air—how else to put it—cast the spell. Where had this woman been all my life? When she was on, when she was in it, she transformed a room like a traveling carnival transforms a parking lot.

  And her brain never stopped. It was all Art all the time. We drove to the train station the next morning, and while we stood on opposite platforms waiting for different trains, we gleefully shouted new ideas to each other across the tracks, as commuters looked up from their Times to furrow their brow. She understood IT—that you’ve got to get obsessive, that only fanatics create something of any worth.

  Three nights later, I was at a New Dramatists function. New Dramatists is a sanctuary for those playwrights who have the good fortune to be selected for one of the organization’s seven-year residencies. Julie’s personal lawyer, Seth Gelblum, was speaking to me. He happened to be on the New Dramatists Board, and as I was drinking my beer he was confiding in me and killing my buzz.

  “You’re about to jump into some seriously deep water. You have no idea the amount of money and expectation riding on this project. And there are some extremely . . . challenging . . . personalities that you’re going to have to contend with. But you’re the right person to do this. You’ll be fine.”

  “That’s good, because you’re freaking me out.”

  Seth then leaned in close and said, “But I’m going to give you some advice. Whatever you do, whatever happens, stick with Julie.”

  Then and there I decided to follow this advice single-mindedly. For once, I wasn’t going to neurotically parse it or add caveats. I would hew closely to this blessedly easy set of instructions and, in doing so, win the grand prize. And seriously, why wouldn’t I “stick with Julie”?

  An hour later, a car was taking Tony Adams, David Garfinkle, Julie, and me to the Meadowlands. We were all off to see “the boys.” Bono and Edge were still smarting over Julie’s decision to give friend Neil Jordan the boot, and they were even more dubious after reading my résumé. So, they insisted on meeting this new bookwriter before signing off.

  U2’s Vertigo Tour was on its way to becoming the highest-grossing tour of the year, featured on magazine covers all summer long. In a few minutes they’d be performing in front of twenty thousand, but at the moment they were offering us cans of Bud from a metal bucket in a small room somewhere in the backstage warren of the Meadowlands.

  There was conviviality, there was small talk, but I kept my mouth shut, and thought about U2’s back catalogue. Twenty-five years they’ve been putting out albums. How was it I only knew three of their songs?

  Bono clapped me on the shoulder—“Your problem, meanwhile, is that you’re too bashful.”

  “Ah, give me a chance!”

  Now Bono was looking me in the eyes.

  “This has to be brilliant. Do you understand? It has to be.”

  There was no mistaking his sincerity—he had absolutely no interest in doing something that wasn’t bloody genius. Otherwise he would walk away. In survival mode, I got animated, swung my hands about, gave him my word—no, no, no, absolutely, if it killed us, we were going to deliver an experience that would blow minds.

  Bono threw a glance to Julie—“You’re sure about this one?” I could see doubt, terror, rising behind her eyes, and now she was shaking my shoulders—“You better write something brilliant, you hear?!”

  I nodded. I had already decided not to tell them about the three other writing jobs I’d committed to that summer.

  The concert began with a spellbinding cascade of luminescence while a ringing guitar riff—as iconically “Edge” as a riff can get—built in tension and complexity until the band erupted into their recently released “City of Blinding Lights.” Right away this concert was confirming what I imagine all playwrights feel whenever they watch a rock concert: Plays blow.

  If only a play could replicate those first seconds of a rock concert—those moments mad with anticipation and excitement. Eight bars on Edge’s guitar and a whole stadium was galvanized. The immediacy, the rawness, the sexuality, the spectacle, the relevance, the passion, those monster lights, and that massive sound—was this what we were shooting for with Spider-Man? Was this where everyone’s head was at? I spent the entire concert raising the bar for our show ever skyward.

  But the real revelation for me at that concert: Until tonight, for whatever ignorant reasons, I thought Bono and Edge were wrong for this project. But tonight I heard both a mischievousness in their music, as well as a dead-earnest, aching yearning for justice, grace, humility, and transcendence. In other words, I heard the soul of our superhero. I was ready to bow down to Tony Adams—he was a genius.

  But he wanted pages. Immediately. Yesterday. Progress was beginning to stall because I was having a hard time selling Julie on my ideas. So I headed to Julie’s country home to hash out the story yet again. But I couldn’t get enthusiastic about anything she was pitching, and meanwhile she was looking at me like I was speaking Urdu.

  Finally, I blurted, “You know, Julie, in a certain light, Spider-Man the Musical is kind of a ridiculous idea.”

  Julie frowned, furrowed her brow, and said, “Ridiculous? I don’t think so. No.”

  She wasn’t just serious, she was solemn. I stammered out a “Oh—but in a certain—well, no, I didn’t really think that either.” But now I was scared. I just assumed everyone thought this project was potentially ridiculous. Obviously it wouldn’t be ridiculous by opening night, because Julie Taymor would make sure of that. But—hoo—was I really working with someone who hadn’t once entertained the notion that perhaps a musical about Spider-Man was . . . just . . . you know . . . ludicrous?

  Another week went by. Having no choice, I turned in what I had—a long-winded treatment of the first act. Tony and Julie were “very unhappy” with this product. I had blown it. I couldn’t convince Julie of my vision for the show, and now she was ready to sack me. So be it. It was fun while it lasted. But then personal assistant Jules called me to say she had just overheard her boss telling Tony she didn’t want me fired. She, in fact, “loved working with Glen.” And, my God, to the point of tears, I loved working with her. And here she had rededicated herself to our collaboration! My loyalty to her was now complete. I vowed I would move my radio dial to her frequency and keep it there. So I headed to the New Amsterdam to scrutinize The Lion King once again.

  And here was something that hadn’t struck me before: When Scar and Simba fight, they lock arms, make a half-revolution, and break. That’s it. That’s the fight. It isn’t a real fight; it isn’t even a dance-interpretation of a fight. It’s a signifier for a fight. On one level, it’s incredibly unsatisfying—where’s the action? Julie unfolds new tableaux in front of us, and what we get is an illusion of action. I
n fact, a single scene is almost always anchored by just a single image, a single gesture. Julie—as she herself had noted in myriad interviews—had been drawn to this approach ever since she was an undergraduate studying under Herbert Blau at Oberlin. Distill and keep distilling, said Blau, until you have the essence—a gesture, a moment, pulsing with narrative power, unencumbered by distracting detail. Blau called this the “ideograph.”

  And what medium came closest to expressing this ideal? Of taking an audience frame by frame, as it were, through a story, each frame designed for maximum impact, always with an ethic of economy in both word and gesture? Yeah. Comic Books. This beautiful, ancient-souled woman knew exactly what she was doing: a Spider-Man musical—there was nothing ludicrous in that. How could I ever have thought otherwise? I saw with newfound clarity that I had to start trusting Julie’s instincts. And Julie and Tony had to stop looking to me to lead the way in this treatment. Julie could only direct what she understood. And Julie couldn’t understand what I had been pitching to her. In fact, it seemed like she could only understand what came from her. And it seemed like somewhere in Julie’s brain was the entire story she wanted to tell, and therefore the most helpful thing I could do was to tease it out of her. I went back to Julie’s country house reborn. Within two weeks, we were finishing the last scenes of the treatment.

  “So what shall we call the fight between Arachne and Peter? ‘Last Dance of the Spiders’?”

  Julie’s eyes lit up. “Oh—no—it has to be a tarantella!”

  “A tarantella?”

  “A tarantella! Like Captain Hook in Peter Pan! ‘Methinks I see a spark! A gleam! A glimmer of a plan! / In which perhaps it may redeem me honor as a man!’ ”

  I guarantee you she hadn’t seen Peter Pan for forty-five years. For day-to-day details, Julie’s memory was spotty at best. But discussing theatre with her? It was like hanging out at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts reference desk.