“The Pirate Queen” (AP)
‘The Capeman’ (Photo credit Joan Marcus)
Legs Diamond (
)
(
)
Is there a doctor in the house?
Last week, “Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark” suffered yet another setback when Spidey stunt double Christopher Tierney became detached from his safety harness and plummeted 30 feet into the orchestra pit. He reportedly suffered broken ribs and internal bleeding. Meanwhile, the Green Goblin got away scot-free.
Let’s hope someone is keeping that ER punch card (the 10th visit is free!), because Tierney’s injury is just another in a line of major medical maladies that has befallen the show’s star-crossed cast, including snapped wrists, a broken foot and a concussion.
This fourth mishap comes on the heels of news that director Julie Taymor and musicians Bono and the Edge are reworking much of the show to make it coherent. Could this be the beginning of the end for the superhero musical?
If it does, it wouldn’t be the first Broadway bomb, but it would be the most expensive in history, as the production has cost $65 million to date. Take a look at other magnificent duds on the Great White Way, and the moments when all was lost.
“Carrie,” 1988
Plot: Based on the Stephen King novel, it tells the story of a tormented high school girl who uses her telekinetic powers to kill everyone at prom.
Life span: Played just five performances, reportedly losing some $7 million. At the time, it was Broadway’s biggest bust ever.
Moment of doom: The real horror was the audience reaction. Many members of the crowd laughed derisively throughout preview shows and booed the performers during the curtain call. Rocco Landesman of Jujamcyn Theaters, the company that owned the theater hosting “Carrie,” told Time magazine, “This is the biggest flop in the world history of the theater, going all the way back to Aristophanes.”
“The Capeman,” 1998
Plot: Based on the story of Salvador Agron, a teen who murdered two others during a 1959 Hell’s Kitchen gang fight. He rehabilitated himself in prison.
Life span: 68 performances. Paul Simon wrote the music and reportedly lost a fair chunk of change, having put up a large portion of the show’s $11 million budget himself.
Moment of doom: The opening had to be delayed when a new director (the show’s fourth) was brought in to tweak the show. Once in previews, “The Capeman” drowned in bad buzz. Attendance dropped from 90 percent capacity to 65 percent. The only smart one of the bunch was producer James Nederlander Jr.; smelling trouble, he reduced his investment from $6 million to $1 million months before previews began.
“The Pirate Queen,” 2007
Plot: The story of a 16th-century Irish chieftain and pirate Grace O’Malley.
Life span: Though it ran for 85 performances, the show reportedly lost nearly $18 million, making it one of the costliest flops in stage history.
Moment of doom: As soon as the musical was unveiled at a sneak-peek party months before opening, critics had the cutlasses out. “The cast sang a few songs, one more turgid than the next, and the plot … seemed earnest and dull,” wrote The Post’s Michael Riedel. Variety called it “lumbering” and “dull,” and wrote that the score contained “about 15 I-pledge, I-vow, I-swear songs too many.” The show walked the plank soon after.
“Kelly,” 1965
Plot: Retells the story of Steve Brodie, a man who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886 and survived. That’s actually what it was about. Really.
Life span: It closed the same night it opened in 1965, reportedly losing all of its $650,000 production costs.
Moment of doom: When the show’s writers sued producers to keep any changes from being made, pre-opening. The producers did manage to replace a performer who got name-checked in a brutal New York Times pan. “Ella Logan was written out of ‘Kelly’ before it reached the Broadhurst Theater Saturday night,” the review began. “Congratulations, Miss Logan.”
“Taboo,” 2003
Plot: Based on the rise of Culture Club frontman Boy George in the early 1980s.
Life span: The show limped through 100 performances, hemorrhaging $100,000 a week. Its failure reportedly cost producer Rosie O’Donnell $10 million.
Moment of doom: Just two weeks before the opening, O’Donnell and Boy George got into a feud after she tried to replace the director. And this came after actor Raul Esparza reportedly walked out of rehearsals following a tiff with O’Donnell.
“Legs Diamond,” 1988
Plot: A ruthless Prohibition-era gangster has aspirations to break into show business.
Life span: 64 performances. After it closed, the Nederlander Organization gave up completely and sold off the Mark Hellinger Theater.
Moment of doom: Um, at conception? According to critics, the show failed on every level. The New York Times wrote, “The script [is] so confusing I lost its thread before the end of the first number . . .”
Perhaps the biggest flaw was having flamboyant Peter Allen play a tough New York gangster. “He delivers jokes as if he were a ‘Hollywood Squares’ second banana struggling with his cue cards, and his dancing amounts to a few Rockette-style high kicks,” the Times reported. After the reviews appeared, Allen got a bit of revenge. During a scene in which he returns from the dead, the actor quipped onstage, “Even the critics can’t kill me.”