Read Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History for Free Online Page B

the next morning taking a too-long walk down Vico Road in the blustery wind to Dalkey. I lent her my scarf, which she wrapped like a babushka to protect her freezing ears, and we were exchanging grins and gazes, and I didn’t know what to make of any of this. She was too young to be my mother, too old to be—what—I didn’t know what, but this was getting heady. A maternal, powerful, alluring artist recognized a kindred spirit and they met on a dream-plane outside the workaday world. This was Act Two, scene two.
    “With me alone you have nothing to hide,” whispered Arachne to a bewildered, flattered, turned-on Peter.
    “And then she starts to pull threads out of his body,” Julie was explaining to Bono.
    “It should feel disorienting, and a little terrifying,” I added, suddenly feeling like I was speaking from personal experience.
    We were back at Edge’s guesthouse, trying to pinpoint the mood for “Turn Off the Dark,” the title song. Spring Awakening was on Julie’s mind—“Teenagers are lining up—they think it’s gonna be hip and edgy and sexy.”
    Steven Sater’s adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play of adolescent angst, with music by Duncan Sheik, had nothing in it production-wise to make Julie envious. Michael Mayer had directed it with minimal design elements, and—by Julie’s estimation—middling rock music.
    However, the show had “cred.” It had the most devoted teen following Broadway had seen since Rent . It had songs about masturbation, and songs with titles like “Totally Fucked.” Marvel Entertainment was pretty clear on the latitude we had for Spider-Man . We could have a song called “In a Pickle,” maybe. “Fucked,” no.
    So here we were, seeking an angle for Mary Jane’s big Act Two song that was going to get the teens saying “righteous,” or whatever teens were saying these days. The composers played a tune we hadn’t heard yet—a tender, haunting piece, with a strong melody, played with nothing but an acoustic guitar. Best thing they had turned out so far. Sounded like a classic.
    “Too French,” Julie pronounced.
    Too French ?
    She was ready to send it to the bin, but then she started thinking out loud—thinking about how she began work on this show just months after 9/11, when life in the city had an apocalyptic tenor, and we all felt a certain vulnerability.
    “Because I think when people come up against the end, there’s that honest-to-God clarity about what matters. ‘The world is ending, but if you’re with me, it’s okay.’ It’s the husband and wife holding hands as the plane goes down. It’s Romeo and Juliet, vowing to kill themselves together. A double suicide.”
    She laughed. “If the Marvel people heard what I’m saying now . . .”
    Putting a suicide pact between Peter and MJ in the showwouldn’t make the suits so happy. But this comic-book musical was parched for some authenticity. Call the song “If the World Should End,” said Julie. Act Two was getting dark, and it felt good.
    Martin McCallum and David Garfinkle decided lunch on this last day together was the time to have “the serious discussion” about the schedule. As Edge and Bono began going through their calendars, I could see the color drain from Martin’s face. The days our composers had cleared to generate the songs for this show . . . well, they hadn’t really cleared any.
    Martin never raises his voice. And his British accent was wrapped in his trademark cottony diplomacy as he expressed to his composers the urgent and sincere need to get this thing accomplished in a timely fashion, as this staged reading in July—“well, it’s going to be a major outlay of funds .”
    I put down my fork and watched, full of empathy for both composer and producer, because Bono was doin’ the ol’ tap dance. He was fudging numbers, giving assurances, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Boy, did I recognize that dance—I had been doing it my whole professional life.