Every night before show time, the cast of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” gathers onstage in a circle. They hold hands, do some funny, ritual moves and anyone who wants to speak can do so. On Wednesday night, they decided to dedicate the show to director Julie Taymor.
“We sent out some love to her,” says actor Patrick Page, who plays the villain Green Goblin. “It was a bittersweet moment.”
The cast had learned only moments earlier, in a meeting with producers and with Taymor’s co-creators, Bono and The Edge, of major changes involving the troubled, $65 million musical: The opening was to be delayed a sixth time. And Taymor, whose creative vision had guided the show from the start, would be replaced in her day-to-day duties as director, with talk swirling in the media that she had resisted wholesale changes producers now felt were needed.
In an interview Thursday, Page, 48, a veteran actor as comfortable doing Shakespeare as he is playing a ghoulish bad guy, described a cast as tight-knit as any with which he has ever performed.
“It’s a kind of bond, an ensemble that I’ve never seen in my time in the business,” he said. “Obviously we’ve been through a long journey together. It just builds strength in us.”
Though he didn’t want to speak for the other actors, Page said he felt certain that they, like him, hold Taymor with high regard and deep affection.
“For me, any day Julie is not in the rehearsal room is a day that I’mgoing to miss her,” said Page, who first worked with Taymor when he played the evil Scar in “The Lion King,” the megahit musical that made her a Broadway superstar and won her two Tony Awards.
“No one in the world has her creative vision, her energy and her unique take on things,” Page added. But, he said, “My understanding is that she will still be involved.”
Although Taymor retains a directing credit, producers have brought in another director, Philip William McKinley, as well as writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Taymor co-wrote the script with Glen Berger) to make some serious tweaks to the flawed show. In a statement Wednesday, producers emphasized that the changes would be substantial.
The development left Taymor’s colleagues and friends baffled and shocked, and they described her as deeply distressed.
“Julie Taymor is a great artist,” said one of her longtime friends and associates, Jeffrey Horowitz, artistic director of the Theatre for a New Audience, on Thursday. “She is brilliant on projects of any scale.” He said he had asked her to direct a show for his company “as soon as she can accept.”
Page said that at the pre-show meeting Wednesday, Bono and The Edge made it clear that they have faith in the musical.
“Look, Bono is a very inspirational figure — to people all over the world,” Page said. “So is The Edge. They very much believe in the show. They just don’t want to finish until they are completely satisfied with the product — just like with an album. They don’t want to freeze the show until it’s something they’d want to see again and again.”
Page said he wasn’t worried about the changes, which he acknowledged will take a huge amount of rehearsal time — so much that producers are planning some sort of break of several weeks, according to his understanding. The show’s spokesman, Rick Miramontez, said Thursday that a shutdown is not planned at thistime.
“If you’re not ready for changes, you shouldn’t do a new musical or a new play,” Page said. “That’s the exciting part — the changes. We’ve made an enormous amount already. We’ve actually been in rehearsal the whole time.” (After Thursday’s show, “Spider-Man” will have played 102 previews — the most ever for a Broadway show.)
Page didn’t know what the changes would be; published reports have speculated they might involve Arachne, the mythical character that Taymor added to the story line but has confused many audiences. They also surely will involve the much-pilloried second act. Taymor has created one of the show’s loveliest images around Arachne: Women on swings weaving great swaths of saffron fabric across the stage.
Asked why he thought Taymor needed to leave her day-to-day duties, Page said, “My understanding is it has to do with Julie’s availability. We expected we’d be open by now.” Lead producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris said Wednesday night that Taymor’s previous commitments would not allow her to work full days and nights past March 15, when the show was scheduled to open after its fifth delay. It will now open in the summer.
Page said there had been no formal goodbye. “I saw Julie a few days ago,” he said. “I talked to her yesterday, and I’ll talk to her again soon. She’s our leader. I think of her as a leader, a muse and a friend.”
The actor had a succinct answer when asked if he considered some of the media coverage of Taymor and the show unfair: “Yes.” Did he know why? “No.”
But he said the cast had learned from the incessant coverage.
“I think we’ve all learned a lot,” he said. “I think we’re really strong. The cast has learned that not everything you read in newspapers and online is necessarily true.”
After Wednesday’s show, the cast got together again — this time in Page’s dressing room, with some people spilling out into the hall. They had a dozen bottles of Champagne, and they toasted Taymor.
“We all had drinks together and had a good time,” he said. “We were obviously sad that we wouldn’t be seeing Julie on a daily basis. But we were also very glad to see that we’d be continuing.”
After all, Page quipped, “any time the producers all get together, you’ve got to be nervous.”
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