Description
Although often described as a rock musical, the production "treads new ground" that some commentators have asserted "have effectively distanced it from its peers—and caused some confusion when it comes time to describe the show." The Edge stated that he is unsure of what description to use for the production, because "It is elements of rock and roll, it's elements of circus, it's elements of opera, of musical theater." Bono, admitting that his description is a little "pretentious," has referred to it as "pop-up, pop-art opera," noting that Julie Taymor is calling it a "rock-and-roll circus drama." Bono has also described the production as "wrestling with the same stuff" as "Rilke, Blake, Wings of Desire, Roy Lichtenstein, the Ramones." A 60 Minutes CBS special stated that it is being called a "comic book rock opera circus," although in that segment Bono noted that even using "rock" to describe the music is too narrow a description, because "We've moved out of the rock and roll idiom in places into some very new territory for us ... big show tunes and dance songs."
The production was described early on as "the most technically complex show ever on Broadway, with 27 aerial sequences of characters flying" and engaging in aerial combat. The production not only features high-flying stunts, but also includes a "multitude of moving set pieces that put the audience in the middle of the action," and enough projections onto giant screens that Bono has said that it is like a three-dimensional graphic novel. The original story treated the origins of Spider-Man similarly to the story in the 2002 film, but wove in an involved story about a villainness based on the mythological Arachne. A "geek chorus" of four teenagers narrated the story. In the rewritten version, the plot hews closer to the comic book and film and trims and transforms the role of Arachne into a "kindred spirit in Spider-Man’s dreams".
Read more about this topic: Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“It is possible—indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic—to give in advance a description of all ‘true’ logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)