Worst. Play. Ever.
Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark could be one of the most expensive Broadway flops of all time. Budget woes, delays, cast changes and spectacular injuries plagued this 65 million dollar production from the start. A Spider-Man stuntman (apparen'tly unable to do whatever a spider can) plunged into the orchestra pit after his safety harness detached. The critics were merciless. Charles Spencer of the Telegraph wrote "I spent much of this dreadful new musical muttering Please, Lord, make it stop."
This recent cover of the New Yorker says it all.
Theatrical flops have a long and venerable history – and make for fun reading. Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops by Ken Mandelbaum chronicles the worst of the worst including the infamous Carrie, a musical based on the Steven King novel (how could that go wrong?).
I loved Diana Rigg's No Turn Unstoned: the Worst Ever Theatrical Reviews – it also has some of the funniest anecdotes. Bad Press: the Worst Critical Reviews Ever! by Laura Ward collects the wittiest (and nastiest) reviews across the arts. At the Toronto Reference Library, you can read Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs.
Another legendary disaster was Arthur Bicknell's Moose Murders which closed on opening night. Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote "Those of us who have witnessed the play that opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater last night will undoubtedly hold periodic reunions, in the noble tradition of survivors of the Titanic." You can check out Broadway Musicals by Ken Bloom, who collects the good with the bad in this recently updated guide.
Mel Brooks 1968 film, The Producers, is about two men (Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder) who plot to engineer a Broadway flop in order to abscond with investors' money. They believe they have a sure-fire bomb with a jaw-droppingly tasteless musical, Springtime for Hitler, written by a lunatic (played by Kenneth Mars, who passed away last week at the age of 75). This Academy Award-winning film eventually became a successful Broadway musical starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
Click here to watch a musical round-up of reviews for Turn off the Dark. Enjoy!
2 thoughts on “Worst. Play. Ever.”
Great recommendations. I’ve just put my name in for No Turn Unstoned — sounds fun.
If you like this sort of thing (and who doesn’t?), I’d also suggest Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert, a very enjoyable collection of reviews of less-than-great movies.