Ode to a Former Starship Captain

     William Shatner is currently performing his one man show Shatner's World: We Just Live In It on Broadway.  It's always a risky prospect going to see or meet someone you have deep admiration for, but I went ahead and did it (with the moral support of some fellow admirers) and I'm pleased to say that it was quite charming overall.  He went over his history as a performer, told some anecdotes, told some (often funny) jokes, showed some well-chosen clips and did not overplay the "Shatner persona."
       In the end, what I found most gratifying about the evening was the chance to stand up and applaud.  I was, of course, one person in a huge room of standing, applauding people.  Mr. Shatner didn't see me as anything more than a face in a massive crowd.  However, on a personal level, it was shockingly affecting to be able to say thank you in this way.  I mean, this is a guy who had a profound effect on my life, a guy who (as Captain Kirk) helped me define what it actually meant to be a man, what it meant to stand up for for what's right and stand up to what's wrong.
      How often do you get the opportunity to actually thank your childhood hero?

Ode to a Former Boy Wizard

     At the behest of our eight-year-old theater critic, my wife and I took our daughters -- for a second time -- to How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying starring, among others, the erstwhile ex-Harry Potter Danial Radcliffe.  The entire show was -- or perhaps I should say "remains" -- grand, smashing entertainment, both sweeping and rollicking in its music and performances and cleverly subversive in its commentary on corporate culture (and, remember, it was originally performed in 1961).  The entertainment value was due in no small part to Mr. Radcliffe himself, who played the role of the naif cum master manipulator with great panache, humor and charisma.  Depending on your opinion of him as a performer, that may come as no surprise.  What blew my socks off (again) was the unbridled energy and and gusto with which he threw himself into the musical numbers and the dancing (also on display during the Thanksgiving Day Parade).  Not trained as a dancer, so far as I know, Mr. Radcliffe held his own with -- occasionally even outshined -- the cadre of professional dancers backing him up.  And these are not easy numbers.  Two in particular -- Grand Old Ivy and Brotherhood of Man -- call for a surprising degree of strength, stamina and acrobatic skill.
     Surely, if there is any actor around right now who can rely on his name to pull in crowds, who does not have to exhaust himself into a gasping, sweating heap eight times a week, it is Mr. Radcliffe.  But his absolute commitment, his unbridled enthusiasm for giving every audience something special, something they can enjoy and remember, is really quite extraordinary.
     It did make me think about the nature of art and the expectation of the audience.  Do we love art more simply because it's beautiful, enjoyable or, on some level, meaningful to us?  Or is there a component of the artist's effort that figures into the audience's experience, even if unconsciously?  Does this effort somehow make the work itself deeper or grander?  Can an effortless piece of art have the same weight as one that required a huge amount of work to produce?
     I don't know, but Mr. Radcliffe has my admiration for his commitment and for getting me to ask myself a new question about the artist's craft.

The Idea of Spider-Man

     I saw Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark last night.  Still in previews, still a work in progress, you've heard it all before, I'm sure.  It doesn't seem fair to review something before the artist(s) says it's complete -- God knows I wouldn't much appreciate somebody critiquing from over my shoulder while I was in the middle of writing a book (or even a blog, for that matter) -- so I'm holding my tongue with regards to the show itself.  But here's something it left me thinking about: just who does the idea of Spider-Man belong to now?

     Nowhere in the playbill, nowhere on the signage, nowhere in the theater, were the names of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko credited.  These were, of course, the two gentlemen who created Spider-Man back in 1962.  Mr. Ditko's art does adorn some of the set and his name, as well as Mr. Lee's, is tossed off in the dialog at one point, and while that's certainly a pleasant tip of the hat, it's far from giving credit where it's due.  I understand that, technically, Marvel (and ultimately Disney) actually owns the character and that they're not obligated to mention the creators' names, not even in the comic books, but you'd think that someone so committed to the artist's vision as the show's director Julie Taymor would have pushed hard for something like this.
     That's all dubious enough for an entire blog, if not an entire New York Times editorial, but that's not the quandary I mean to pose with my question about who Spider-Man belongs to.  What I mean is, once you create something like Spider-Man and release it to the world, and it's powerful enough that it lodges in the cultural consciousness, to what extent does it become the conceptual property of everyone?
     Taymor and her co-writer Glen Berger have used a great deal of narrative shorthand in re-telling Spider-Man's origin, relying on the fact that the audience already knows the ins and outs of the mythology.  At the same time, they have infused the story with their own mythology, even as they dispense with aspects of the character that are central in other depictions.  Certainly it's a tribute to the power of a particular art that it can be effectively interpreted in a number of ways, that so many different worthwhile themes can be taken from it, while it still maintains its essential thrust.  But to what extent does such a widely reinterpreted idea still "belong" to the guy or guys who originally had it?  With universes like those built in Star Wars and Star Trek, which are subject to such a huge amount of fan "ownership," when does the original artist (as people like Stan Lee and George Lucas seem to have done) throw up his or her hands, say "go ahead, take the idea for a spin, see what you can do with it" and just let it go?
      When something that sprang from your own mind undergoes such large scale re-shaping, does it always rankle a little bit or is widespread cultural acceptance the highest possible achievement for an idea?  That's what I've been wondering.