The altar of Julie Taymor's Temple of Croon has been bare for too long, but tonight it will be piled high with fresh sacrifices, and the gutters of 42nd Street will once again run with blood! After canceling two performances following Monday night's near-death experience, the producers of Spider-Man: Turn of the Dark insist the show will go on tonight. The state Labor Department is satisfied the $65 million musical has made the necessary safety improvements—but spokeswoman Maureen Cox says an investigation is continuing into what caused aerialist Christopher Tierney to fall nearly 30 feet. And she tells the AP, "We're also making sure that the actors and the stagehands know that if everything is not right, they can say, `We're not going to go.' " Boooooring! We want to see a trainwreck!
Spectators like 34-year-old Jason Majestic came all the way from Long Island for some fresh meat. "It is such a controversial show with a little bit of danger involved," Majestic tells the Post. "You want everyone to be safe—but it would have been awesome to watch if something had happened." Bloodthirsty ticket-holders who showed up last night were furious to discover the performance had been canceled; the box office hadn't sent out e-mails notifying them until 5:30 p.m. (The media was informed about an hour earlier.) "I read this morning that the matinee was canceled but that the show would be on tonight," Lou Esposito of Valley Stream fumed to Newsday (paywall). "I had seven people coming to see the show." And here's the Post's video of other disappointed ticketholders (fun fact: the only one who expressed concern for Tierney was a tourist from California).
In an attempt to placate the mob, star Reeve Carney, who plays Spidey, and Patrick Page, the villainous Green Goblin, greeted fans outside the theater and signed autographs. "There's no good way to tell an 8-year-old they won't get to see Spider-Man," Page said, "but it's a little better if Spider-Man or the Green Goblin comes out to explain it to them." Sorry little Jimmy, but the mean old state Labor Department says you're just too young to witness criminally negligent manslaughter.
