Spiderman

Okay, let's see. Contusions, sub-concussive head injuries, broken wrists, broken ribs, and internal bleeding--I guess they're having some technical difficulties over at The Foxwoods Theater.

Let's just say that Spiderman is having far bigger than technical problems. The whole thing is so jaw-droppingly bad it is mystifying. The book goes so wrong it's hard to even know what to say (why did they change it at all?). And the score just doesn't fit the show it was written for. The whole thing is a hot mess. When the curtain came down for intermission my daughter turned to me, her face seemed to have gone numb, "They gotta get somebody in here" she said.

But who are they going to get? Nobody is going to come fix a Julie Taymor production. As they say--not gonna happen. You get a huge talent like that, and you take the good with the bad. They bring us new ways to see. New ways to feel. But they are not typically open to a whole lot of "constructive criticism.".

Hey, I am a huge Julie Taymor fan. I remember hearing she had been given the job directing The Lion King, and thinking what a stroke of genius had hit Disney. And it was. The magic of her daring artistry transformed what would likely have been a bland or crass commercial production into something else, indeed: an immensely enjoyable and accessible work of art.

The opening scene of The Lion King can still bring about that joyful breeze up my spine in the remembering. The residents of the jungle arriving down the aisle to Elton John's soaring score heralded the arrival of a genuinely new experience. And the puppets. Oh my god, the puppets. Had you ever seen anything like them before? I certainly hadn't.

So when I heard she was doing Spiderman, with music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge, I simply couldn't wait. What magic this time? What new realm of the imagination would she explore for us this go-round? I held my breath and waited. Alan Cumming signed on. Evan Rachel Wood would be MaryJane. All kinds of happy speculation about who would be Spidey.

Then we heard things were going wrong. First was the production cost: scheduled originally at $20 million (already the most expensive Broadway production in history) it headed skyward: $30Million, no $40Million--could it actually become a $50Million Broadway musical? Um, no. It became a $65Million Broadway musical, a sort of money-devouring juggernaut. Well, ok. So they would need to sell out The Foxwoods for three years, every night at full price, to recoup the investment. Not unheard of. Certainly Julie had done that with The Lion King; Wicked makes it look like child's play. But no one in their right mind had ever even come close to spending on a stage production, the phenomenal amounts spent on movies with worldwide reach.

But it was worse than that--we heard it wasn't very good. It wasn't taking shape. And the bloodlust filled the air. Oh, the schadenfaude. Michael Reidel in the Post could not contain himself--his column was giddy with predictions of doom. But I don't know--it's Julie Taymor for god's sake. It must be better than they say.

It isn't. Oh, the sets are sorta great. Really. The lighting is superb. And the flying is pretty damned cool. There's a scene with giant puppet heads and giant comic-style sets that is completely thrilling. In fact, I would say that the mise en scene is one of the best I've ever seen. In the service of nearly nothing.

Just a few notes about things. There is a sort of Greek chorus of comics-loving teens that set the scenes. It doesn't work. Peter Parker is played as a complete nebish rather than the stifled, repressed font of possibility he is. It doesn't work. The goddess Arachne hovers over the proceedings in completely unintelligible ways. When I saw it, in the third week of previews, the whole thing worked so little that the lead producer came out before the opening to tell us they were trying a new ending tonight. What? Three weeks into previews of the most expensive production ever, they were trying out a new ending!?! It didn't work.

Oh, well. Life upon the wicked stage.

Pulino

I know I waxed rhapsodic about Paulie G's. And I want to go on record defending my words. Paulie G's crust is sublime, perhaps without equal.

But Pulino's pizza is better. There, I've said it.

OMG, their polpettine pizza, with bits of small italian meatballs and sprinkled with a sort of pesto of peppers is my new favorite pizza. In fact, my new favorite meal is: their polpettine pizza, with their toasted pumpkin salad (that's right, toasted pumpkin) with the hearty but somehow delicate canneloni. Heaven.

Let me do the rundown. This salad is by far my favorite salad anywhere these days. It is made with shredded red cabbage, frisee, pine nuts, the aforementioned small chunks of toasted pumpkin (ok, toasted pumpkin is seriously delicious) and a deeply felt smattering of pancetta with a light but super-flavorful vinegrait. The canelloni is cheese-rich. The pasta itself seems too delicate for the heft of it, yet somehow works perfectly.

But it is the pizza, the pizza that I dream about. We are talking daydreams and sleeping dreams. Talking driving dreams and walking dreams. I think it’s about he cheese/oil/sauce proportion. It develops a sort of fusion that you rarely see. I, for one, am always hoping for it--the pizza arrives and the air is pregnant with hope: the sum will be greater than its parts. Rarely does it happen. Yes, there is pizza with great crust, artisanal cheese, whatever. But the ethereal pizza born of the massive Italian Pulino ovens has achieved that elusive, elevated thing--it is a thing unto itself . It cannot be deconstructed. However--the oil infuses the crust, the cheese and oil seem to activate each other, the sauce sits with them in what feels like perfect harmony.

Has Keith McNally entered a sort of do-no-wrong zone? He has opened, in rather rapid-fire succession: Minetta Tavern, Morandi, and now Pulino. I should tell you that the place is crowded. All the time. And it's a little expensive for pizza. It's at Houston and Bowery. It attracts: hipsters, seekers of cool new places, art-y downtowners, foodies. It has an eight-top table that seems permanently reserved for groups of girls in their twenties.

Listen, the place is great. Go.

La Bete

Ok, hold on, I may have spoken too soon.

There's still no doubt--Al Pacino is giving one of those performances so powerful that it pins you to your chair, you can't move, then flings you skyward as he takes you soaring. It's utterly amazing.

But wait. You only have to go around the corner, down Shubert Alley to The Music Box, to be enthralled by the next magnificent performance of the season (how much do you love Broadway when it just comes at you like that?). If you haven't heard yet--Mark Rylance is killin' em in La Bete. Killin' em! It is the kind of tour-de-force performance that unearths all your sense of awe and delight at the very craft of acting. His delivery and timing are simply superb.

In rhyming verse, his opening 25 minute monologue is a thing so precise, yet so daringly vertiginous, that I dare say, it approaches perfection. Making his Moliere-esque entrance, Valere (Rylance) is immediately disgusting. He's still carrying two quartered slices of melon from dinner, and spits all too large chunks of it with his first words. Not allowing you to even have your laugh yet, he spits more word-born melon only moments later, more still a few words on. It seems he's always spitting something with his long-winded pronouncements. You can't believe the scatological things he does, quite blithely, without a moment's pause in his discourse. It's really quite amazing--you cannot believe he is even doing these things.

How is it possible to not only keep your attention during a 25 minute monologue--but for it to grow ever rapt as you are drawn powerless to the end? I don't know. One thing I do know is that David Hyde Pierce has to be the best listener on Broadway. How in the world does he listen so eloquently? It is enthralling to watch these two masters of their craft stand in such equipoise.

Not that they quite needed it, but Joanna Lumley brightens further the proceedings. She's terrific as the annoyed queen, sitting and judging the players as they don their masks.

All I can say is: get Yee to The Music Box theater. You don't see a thing like this everyday.