Julie Taymor stepping down or away from “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” was expected. In her talk at TED 2011, last week there seemed to be a hint that she was expecting a downturn in events and was cushioning her admirers and supporters for a possible fall.
In Broadway history it is not unusual for directors or writers to be removed from projects that they’ve started. Possibly the one difference here is that Julie Taymor’s visual style is so unique that it would seem impossible for someone else to supplant the original intent of the play. Ms. Taymor’s work for me has always been about magic, our accepting something that we knew was not real, like an elephant disappearing in smoke or in her case turning puppets in lions and giraffes (“The Lion King”). Taymor is a brilliant illusionist and feeds our visual fantasies.
“Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” may have been too large of a project for right now, plus no one is immune to some failure and Ms. Taymor will be back to Amaze us once more.