Jon and Colleen started out the day at the Empire State Building. It was brisk at the top, but a clear day and Colleen got to meet King Kong before he took his break!
After that, in honor of Colleen's friend Dawn and Colleen's father-daughter trips to NYC, they headed to Macy's. There was some sort of police activity outside the door they had planned to go in (never did figure out what it was), Jon and Colleen were able to get in another entrance. After a vendor hot dog, they headed up toward 5th Ave., stopping by Bryant Park (hello, "Project Runway"!), the New York Public Library, American Girl Place, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the NBA Store, Trump Tower, Central Park and FAO Schwarz, where the Barbie Foosball table was Colleen's highlight.
After a day of walking, Jon and Colleen decided to take the Subway back to the hotel. There, they split the leftovers of Colleen's Rosie O'Grady's dish from the night before, Shepherd's Pie. After that and a nap for Colleen, Jon and Colleen headed to Foxwoods Theater for the main reason for the trip, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."
Colleen's first act review:
The flying was pretty incredible. What a long way we've come from the up/down and side-to-side motion of "Peter Pan." We're talking 360 degree rotations over the audience (we were in the balcony so some stuff below us was obstructed). They made no attempts to hide the wires and it still looked like they were flying. (They also made no attempt to hide the fact there were tons of Spider-Men. There was no way he could leap across the stage and two seconds later pop up elsewhere. One sequence where they used the device actually made it look like a montage would in a movie.) The set pieces were fantastic. They pulled out and in and flipped side to side and had the look of a comic book. The comic-like masks/costumes for assorted baddies were over-exaggerated and brilliant. Peter Parker/Spider-Man was earnest and sweet. MJ (who had a Tony nomination for "Next To Normal") had a great voice. "Daily Bugle" editor JJ was hilarious. The score, though, (by Bono and U2's "The Edge") was weak. I wanted to like it, but couldn't. There were some shades of a U2-esque number, but then they'd go away. Although sung well, the songs were just "eh." The best number was one with Norman Osborn and military-types, very military-esque and precise. More troubling was the other female lead - Arachne the spider of Greek legend fame (where we get arachnid from). The show opened up with her and other "spinners" descending from above in a number that was just plain weird and then she showed up again (after biting Spider-Man in the lab - one of several differences between this plot and the Tobey Maguire movies) to apparently sew him his suit because he was her protege and chance for redemption.
Colleen's second act review:
The second act was REALLY dark. Thematically dark. After opening up with a gangbusters number featuring tons of villains in fabulous costumes, projected alongside scores of video screens, we were taken down this path were Peter was failing at school, work and an attempted relationship with MJ and where he was having sexual fantasies about Arachne (she even picked him up and spun him around -- parallel to her own body -- a how-did-they-do-that moment, but icky nonetheless). When Peter decided to give up being Spider-Man, Arachne resurrected the villains from the dead.
As for the end, I can't tell you, because as Spider-Man looked like he was going to jump to save a dangling MJ (a scene echoed at the start of the show), Spider-Man jumped. Or at least he thought he jumped. Then I heard a woman say, "Call 911." My very first thought was, "Is this part of the show?" but then a split-second later I heard a woman scream. I thought the MJ character had fallen but Jon said that no - one of the stunt Spider-Men had fallen faster than he should have. The more I thought about it, it did seem as if he had fallen at the speed of gravity. A short time later a voice came over the intercom that said, "We're going to pause the production." I was waiting for the lights to come on and they finally did. Shortly after that, the same voice came over the intercom and told us the performance would be cancelled.
We, and a lot of other audience members, just sat there, stunned. What happened? Jon called WABC (employer New England Cables News (NECN) has a loose affiliation) and they sent a photographer who ended up getting there just as the ambulance was pulling away from the stage door. The photographer interviewed both us and another guy in the crowd.
We then went to get a late second dinner/dessert at Juniors. Colleen called NECN to give them a heads-up. One of the guys next to us overheard us talking and said that he was there too and that the injured actor was talking when they brought him out on the backboard, so that made us feel a bit better, but still, scary stuff. -- POSTED BY COLLEEN
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