I believe that certain shows should never see the light of day, regardless of their pedigree. A few years ago, they made a musical out of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. At that time, I was exchanging emails with Hornby (long story) and he confided that he wasn’t sure how it could work since Rob, the character in the book and, theoretically, the target audience for the show, was the type of guy who wouldn’t be caught dead attending a Broadway musical.

Sure enough, the show opened and closed in short order. Did the producers learn their lesson? It seems not.

Someone came up with the terrible idea of turning Spider-man into a Broadway musical. I’m not kidding. I read Spider-man comic books as a kid and I don’t want to see Spider-man singing on a Broadway stage! Criminy! The low point of Spider-man III was that ridiculous cabaret scene. WTF was that?

I don’t know how they did it but they somehow convinced Bono and The Edge to write the music and lyrics. U2 writing Broadway musicals?! That’s ANOTHER terrible idea! Further, they got Julie Taymor to direct. She directed Disney’s The Lion King, which is a spectacular display of costumes, puppetry and staging (although the Elton John/Tim Rice score is completely forgettable). Allan Cumming agreed to play the Green Goblin. Another great talent sucked in. The end result was suppose to be Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark.

I can’t imagine how they lured all this top-shelf talent into a project that, to me, seems doomed from the start. Cash?

But this post has a happy ending. Cooler heads have prevailed and work on this train wreck has been suspended due to an “unexpected cash flow problem.” Thank Jeebus. The critics can put down their knives and I don’t have to worry about Peter Parker singing a tender love ballad to Mary Jane and then grabbing a top hat and cane and breaking into a spider-dance. Shudder.

Artisté Florenza and I saw the Roundabout Theater Company’s production of The Tin Pan Alley Rag at the Larua Pels. It’s a fantastic premise and an elaborate production for such a small space that delivers the goods in uneven servings.

The play imagines a meeting between Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin in Berlin’s music publishing office on 28th Street—the Tin Pan Alley of the title. The meeting is fictitious but the idea is ripe with possibilities. Though not a big Berlin fan, I’ve always admired Joplin’s music and was predisposed to like the show before it began, but it could use a sharp knife to trim some fat off the meat.

Scott Joplin wrote an opera that’s a hybrid of ragtime and traditional European opera. Treemonisha was finally produced in 1976 and won the Pulitzer but, honestly, I didn’t think it was all that. So one of the main plot devices and some of the music is sourced from something that I couldn’t get interested in. But I do like The Maple Leaf Rag.

Sad coincidence: Both Berlin and Joplin lost their wives to illness just months after their wedding.

This YouTube vid isn’t much to look at, but it’s Scott Joplin playing and of the several versions I previewed, this is by far the best. I’ve always heard that ragtime is very difficult to play. Can anyone confirm that?

I saw Our House, the latest comedy-drama by Theresa Rebeck at Playwrights Horizons. Rebeck is primarily a playwright, but she also wrote episodes for NYPD Blue, which I’m assuming provided her with a pretty healthy income. She burns so many bridges in Our House that I can only assume she never wants to work in TV again.

There are several plot strings but the funniest and most interesting (to me) was the biting parody of the real-life relationship between the skeevy CBS president Les Moonves and his young, hot employee, Julie Chen.

Ms. Chen was a B-list member of the CBS news team, which is an old and dignified news organization. After fucking old Les (he is old enough to be her father) she scored a plum position as host of Big Brother. It’s the oldest story in the oldest book.

There was a lot of gnashing of teeth in the newsroom over Moonves’s decision. The conflict of interest could damage the network’s journalistic integrity, but top-shelf sex will make a man do crazy things (see recent Republican foibles). One character in the play accused “Wes,” of “…thinking with is dick.” I‘ve done that myself once or twice.

The story has two great plot twists, but I found the casting and acting to be uneven. It’s always a shock to see sub-par acting being performed at an established company like Playwrights Horizons.

CB and I finally saw the third installment of The Norman Conquests. I laughed so hard my face hurt. Three well-written, well-acted plays, all linked together, yet separate. It’s quite an achievement. We did it ass-backwards, seeing the plays in 3-2-1 order. Oddly enough, we both agree that it was a better sequence than the recommended 1-2-3.

On Saturdays and select Sundays you can see all three plays in one day for a special low price. I have no idea how the actors are able to perform at peak levels for seven hours—especially the lead—but word on the street is that they pull it off quite well. I’m not sure I would undertake it. I eventually burn out on laughing.

A few of the actors were nominated for Tonys and the play won for best revival. It deserved it. The show is doing okay business but not as well as it should. The house is running at about 87% of capacity. The problem is that it’s marketed as a trilogy and most people don’t want to invest the time and money into seeing ONE play much less THREE! The producers should make it clear that it’s not necessary to take in all three plays. You can have a perfectly fine evening seeing just one. Besides, only a lunatic, theater-obsessed New Yorker would sentence themselves to spending seven hours with a demented British family. Right, CB?

About three weeks ago, CB and I were lucky enough to get a ticket to Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests; a brilliant comedy trilogy that can be viewed in any order or independently as stand-alone plays.

That’s almost seven hours of theater with the same six characters. Norman is a horrible-charming cad who obsessively seduces and deceives three sisters. He’s married to one of them but that doesn’t seem to be a sticking point with him.

We’ve got two down and one to go. This time, we saw Living Together. Although these are separate pieces of the same puzzle, this is considered the middle play.

Since seeing Round and Round the Garden three weeks ago, which is technically considered the third play (we’re doing it ass-backwards), the play picked up a few Tony nominations, namely, best revival, best performance by an actor, best performance by an actress (two of those) and best director. Not a bad day at the office.

It deserves all the accolades it can get. It’s so funny and the actors work their asses off and they’re British and I know that shouldn’t count for anything but because I’m a big Anglophile, it does. You really can’t go wrong with any of these plays so if you live out here or are visiting I would encourage you to go. You’ll laugh. And who couldn’t use a good laugh these days? God knows I need one.

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We sat near Vogue editor Anna Wintour. She was there with her daughter. [CB identified her daughter. I had no idea who she was.] She sat through the entire performance with her sunglasses on. Indoors. At night. What a horrible, pretentious idiot. (With apologies to CB. He admires her.)