By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN — The only thing more painful than the actors injuries during production of Broadway's "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" may be sitting through the musical itself, according to critics who slammed the play this week.
Directed by "Lion King" director, Julie Taymor, and with music composed by Bono and The Edge of U2, the $65 million show was expected to transform Broadway. Instead, theater critics have roundly panned what they're calling a confused production.
"What I saw is a big production going in too many directions and in need of a lot of work to make it entertaining, satisfying and understandable," Daily News critic Joe Dziemianowicz said in a review posted Tuesday.
Spider-Man, the most expensive Broadway musical to date, has been plagued by a ballooning budget and investigations by the Department of Labor after several actors and stunt men suffered injuries during the show's high-flying stunts.
Several performances were canceled in December when stuntman Christopher Tierney was seriously injured after falling off the stage during an audience preview.
Aside from the technical difficulties, critics also took exception to the introduction of a new Spider-Man villain, Arachne.
"Is this webslinger real or merely a figment of Peter Parker's dreams?" wrote Elizabeth Vincentelli from the New York Post, who gave the show two and a half stars out of four.
Fearing that the accidents, budgets and mayhem associated with Spider-Man has turned the show into a Broadway punchline, New York Times critic Ben Brantley suggested that producers embrace the reputation and let the audience in on the joke.
"Actively letting theatergoers in on the national joke that this problem-plagued show has become helps make them believe that they have a reason to be there," Brantley wrote Tuesday.
"Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" is scheduled to open officially on March 15 at the Foxwoods Theatre.
