The producers of the hugely expensive Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical have taken exception to reviews of the show from Jeremy Gerard of Bloomberg News and Linda Winer of Newsday.  The two reviewers broke an unwritten Broadway compact between producers and critics, who are traditionally invited to special “critics previews” held just before the show opens with the understanding that their reviews will be held until the show officially debuts.

A spokesperson for the $65 million show, which has been plagued by cost overruns and several major accidents (see “Spidey Actor Back on His Feet”), told The Hollywood Reporter: “Whatever reason the critic or their editor may have, it does not mask the fact that for decades, musicals have developed in front of paying audiences before critics are invited.”

In her article that was as much a “report” as a full-on “review,” Winer admitted that she was breaking a “Broadway’s gentleperson’s agreement.”  But her “report” was filled with critical elements including comments from fellow audience members, and she explicitly criticized the show’s “weak second act” and damned the show’s elaborate aerial sequences with faint praise as “exciting and scary in a circus way.”

Gerard wrote what he termed “an interim report” that reads like a scathing review.  While praising some aspects of the show including the sets, lighting, and choreography, he concluded by characterizing the show as “an unfocused hodge-podge of story-telling, myth-making and spectacle that comes up short in every department.”

Historically speaking, it is certainly unfair that the Spider-Man musical has not had a chance to refine its book and production in front of live audiences over an extensive preview period—a process that has polished countless musical productions into near sparkling perfection.  Publishing reviews a full five weeks before the show opens certainly qualifies as “dirty pool,” but it also appears obvious that it is just too much to ask professional critics to hold their fire in the age of the Internet since preview performances of the Spider-Man musical have been reviewed many times over in the blogosphere.

All things considered, the nasty early notices in Newsday and Bloomberg News are just another set of hurdles for the troubled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark production, which suffered yet another blow this week when actress Natalie Mendoza, who plays Arachne, a major villain created by director Julie Taymor, quit the show.  Mendoza suffered a concussion on November 28th while she was standing offstage when a rope holding a piece of equipment swung into her.