Five years ago, The Gaslight Theatre premiered a new play: “The Incredible Spider Guy.”
If you missed it then, you can see it now.
Barely a line has changed in the Peter Van Slyke-penned spoof of — you guessed it — the “SpiderMan” movies, but you kinda don’t care. The cast has energy, the jokes are so bad they are good, the costumes are inventive, and the Tom Benson sets are amazing. Benson has been with the Gaslight for eons, and we’ve never known him to disappoint.
In this production, he takes us from a college lab to a corporate office to a speeding subway car. Each is filled with wit and rich detail. Benson is kind of a scene-designer genius.
The story is, like most Gaslight stories, completely predictable.
There are the bad guys, in this case, a newspaper publisher (Charlie Hall) and the head of a corporation turned into the Green Gremlin (Todd Thompson). And the good guy — Billy Baker (a limber Jake Chapman), who is bit by a genetically altered spider and takes on super powers.
The bad guys try to take over the world and destroy Spider Guy, and to use the love of his life, Mary Lou (perky Janée Page), to trick him. But good prevails, and their evil attempts are thwarted. Meanwhile, Billy, geeky and clumsy pre-bite, has gained confidence, saved the girl, and wins her heart.
Thrown into the story are songs, such as “Hang on Sloopy” — which has been altered to “Hang on Spidey”— and “Cool Jerk,” which is prompted by a character’s jerky persona.
Sure, the jokes are old and corny, but the show is packed with talent and energy. And there’s this: The after-show olio is a take-off of the wonderfully dreadful “Gong Show,” an amateur talent TV show in the mid-’70s. It was bad then. It’s bad now. And oh my, is it fun.
All that and the theater is air-conditioned.
